Oluwakemi Tomobi, MD, MEHP
Oluwakemi Tomobi, MD, MEHP
Physician; Research Fellow; Professor
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Oluwakemi Tomobi MD, MEHP is a Research Fellow at the Johns Hopkins Department of Anesthesiology & Critical Care Medicine, and a Life Sciences Professor at Howard Community College. Currently, she serves as a liaison to the Society for Education in Anesthesia’s Diversity Committee. In addition to growing up in the United States, she has also worked in Sierra Leone, Ecuador, Guyana, and Nigeria. During a clinical rotation in Guyana, she further realized the role of a doctor as a “teacher” to both healthcare trainees and patients. Specifically, she realized that during the pre-anesthesia assessment, physician anesthesiologists have an opportunity to educate obstetric patients about anesthesia options, and physician anesthesiologists educate trainees to confidently offer and deliver regional anesthesia to patients instead of general anesthesia by default. Dr. Tomobi sought to live up to the “educator” role of a physician. She completed a Master’s in Education of the Health Professions (MEHP) program at Johns Hopkins, where she pursued a global anesthesia education project that brought her to Sierra Leone. During her time in Sierra Leone, Dr. Tomobi organized a nurse anesthetist training program, became more acquainted with global perioperative disparities, and thus embarked on a quest to address similar health disparities in the United States. As a college professor, as an MEHP Fellow, as a researcher, and with the Student National Medical Association, she has mentored dozens of students on the path to a career in healthcare. She has served as SNMA National Publications Committee Co-Chair and Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of the Student National Medical Association. Noticing that anesthesiology did not have many underrepresented minorities, and noticing that there was no Anesthesiology interest group in the SNMA, she collaborated with the National Academic Affairs Committee to create an anesthesiology interest group and was founder and inaugural anesthesiology interest group leader. The group allowed students to network with faculty anesthesiologists, to learn that anesthesiology is accessible for underrepresented groups, and to gain early exposure into the anesthesiologists’ role in the healthcare system. In 2019, she organized a workshop at SNMA’s Annual Medical Education Conference for premedical students and medical students to interact with anesthesiology faculty and learn more about the specialty, in efforts to increase underrepresented minority interest in the anesthesiology specialty. Today, several of the former student attendees are in anesthesiology residency programs, and the anesthesiology interest group continues to grow strong. In addition, she has introduced healthcare issues, such as COVID-19 to local undergraduates through simulation opportunities while also keeping participants grounded in basic science concepts. She has published and presented at local, national, and international conferences on perioperative disparities. She has been awarded fellowships from the American Society of Anesthesiologists and the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health. In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, she stays passionate about her role as a doctor by remembering that “doctor” in Latin means “teacher”; therefore, as doctors strive to be better educators, doctors strive to achieve better care for their patients.