The Association of Nigerian Physicians in the Americas (ANPA) stands as the largest diaspora professional health organization of Nigerian heritage in the world.
ANPA is very special to all of us. It is also one of the few multiethnic and multicultural organizations of Nigerians that has lasted almost 30 years without breaking up. Although we may have differences, we must put them aside and come together to embrace our diversity and work towards our common Mission and Vision. ANPA is better together, which was the main motivator for me to run for this office two years ago.
ANPA's newly revised vision is “A Healthy Nigeria and America in a Healthy World.” Our noble, ambitious vision that guided us until today was “A Healthier Nigeria in a Healthier World”, but the new one stated above that includes the Americas, where we live and serve, more accurately captures what we do and broadens the opportunity to engage our growing population of younger physicians of Nigerian heritage born here, that I believe will be a large part of the future of ANPA.
ANPA National Executives:
- Cliff Eke MD, FACS, FICS (General Surgery and General Thoracic Surgery) - President
- Gertie Anyanwoke MD, MBA, FIDSA, FACP (Infectious Diseases) - President-Elect
- Lanre Y. Jimoh MD, MBA (Gastroenterologist) - Treasurer
- Chinyere Anyaogu MD MPH FACOG (Obstretrician / Gynecologist) - Immediate Past President
ANPA member benefits include continuing education credits, leadership and/or committee involvement opportunities, annual meeting discounts, and options to serve and/or support medical missions.
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The Association Of Nigerian Physicians In The Americas
Why Join ANPA?
Why Join the most interesting Association of Doctors?
There are several membership categories with different fees:
- Students: $50
- Residents & Fellows: $50
- Associate / Per Annual: $300
- Affiliate / Per Annual: $350
- Regular / Per Annual: $500
ANPA's Key Initiatives
Here are some of the key initiatives undertaken by ANPA:
- Local Chapter Projects
- Networking Opportunities to serve member’s professional growth.
- 5K Run Activities promoting individual well-being while raising funds for a designated local cause and ANPA national programs.
- Coat Drive for the poor.
- Mentoring and Youth Developments: ANPA mentors Health care professionals through residency, early professional life, through chapter collaborations and networking, professional programs and also through its collaboration with Mentoring in Medicine.
- Thanksgiving Feed the Hungry programs involving our children.
- Free Health Fairs open to the public.
- ANPA Golf fundraising Events to support our local and national charitable programs.
- Ladies Hat And Tea Forum
A philanthropic arm of ANPA with focus on promoting services pertinent to women and children. ANPA women work to support initiatives that are in line with the association’s mission. Widely popular and engaging, the Hat and Tea is a hugely anticipated part of the annual program. Some initiatives have involved donations of milk, water storage systems and money to motherless babies homes in Nigeria, specifically Enugu in 2016 and Abuja area in 2018; raising money to pay for continuation of services to rape victims at the Mirabel Rape Center in Lagos, in 2017.
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ANPA will work alongside diaspora physicianss, pharmacists and nurses in this program created by the Federal Minister of Health, Prof. Adewole and Mrs Abike Dabiri, Presidential Adviser on Diaspora Affairs, to provide highly specialized care to designated centers of excellence in our country on a rotational basis.
As our Flagship program, we harness our talents and offer services to the indigent and undeserved in our country. It has three components:
- Medical mission: We provide free medical, surgical and dental care to the underserved and indigent in the country.
- Continuous Professional Development/CME program: With the recognition of the medical talents in our organization, the Nigerian government designated ANPA as a National CPD provider to enable skills transfer and continuing education for our colleagues in Nigeria.
- Advocacy: We seek out and interact with the healthcare stakeholders in the government to lobby for and promote appropriate healthcare practices in the country.
Team Build and Collaboration with stakeholders in the healthcare sectors such as pharmacists and nurses have helped advance its goals to reach across the healthcare spectrum and bridge the healthcare divide. ANPA strongly believes that successful healthcare provision in the country can only result from the collaborative and synergistic engagement of various medical professionals working together while respecting each other’s role in the value chain, for the well-being of the patient who is at the center of care delivery.
ANPA Mental Wellness Program Addresses the increasing incidence of burnout and stress management of our high-performing physicians as they manage the realities of the US workplace and shoulder the support of family and extended relations in and outside the US.
ANPA Week is our annual trip to Nigeria where free medical and surgical care is provided to an indigenous population; continuous professional development training is imparted to the local medical staff; and health care advocacy is done.
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Don’t Have a Local Chapter?
An ANPA chapter may represent an entire state, or only a part of a state (as in the USA) or a whole province or part of a province (as in Canada). Also a chapter may represent members from different adjoining or contiguous states (as in the USA) or different contiguous provinces or adjoining provinces (as in Canada).
A minimum of ten members is required to form a chapter of ANPA.
In this brief historical account of ANPA, the first tribute that must be paid goes to Dr. Iheanacho Emeruwa, a busy internist and a board certified Obstetrician-Gynecologist who may be accurately referred to as “the founder of ANPA”. He, more than anyone else spear-headed the research and the labor-intensive tasks that made the birth of ANPA possible. His son’s bedroom was ANPA’s first business office; his wife, Meg, was the first manager of ANPA’s secretariat, and he himself was ANPA’s first Executive Director.
Working very closely with Dr. Emeruwa, during the gestational period of ANPA, were Drs. Olusegun Salako, Dapo Popoola, Julius Kpaduwa, and Yinka Soroye. Dr. Using the directory of known Nigerian Physicians in the US, this committee of five, arranged the first meeting of Nigerian physicians at Anaheim, California in 1995 with Mr. Randall Robinson of TransAfrica as the keynote speaker. At this inaugural gathering of ANPA’s founding members, Dr. Matthias Okoye, a Pathologist, was elected President by a simple majority vote. As ANPA’s first President, he did the best he could, to hold the new association together in spite of its little or no resources. The second ANPA “convention” was purposely held in New York City-the place that had the greatest concentration of Nigerian Physicians at the time.
During this rather tumultuous and larger gathering, the air was full of both promise as well as lots of doubts about the fate of ANPA. At the end and almost unanimously Dr. S.K. Bosu, a Pediatrician was elected as the second President of ANPA. The other very significant achievement at that convention was an agreement on the major tenets of ANPA emerging Bylaws-including the order of succession.
Once again, following the NYC convention, there was very little that went on until the third convention in Chicago which turned out to be one of the most consequential of all ANPA’s conventions, in many respect. The most vivid account of what happened at this third ANPA Convention of 1997 (in Chicago) is accurately reflected in the official account that Dr. Alphonsus Obayuwana gave five years later-in Atlanta, Georgia.
“As I remember it, the month was June, the place was Chicago, and the occasion was the Third Annual Convention of the Association of Nigerian Physicians in the Americas - ANPA. Our organization was just two years old, but its future seemed so full of promise. As the arriving ANPA members started to gather for our traditional Friday night reception, the exuberance of the crowd suddenly became dampened by the news that the then President of ANPA, Dr. Bosu, had resigned; and more surprisingly, that he, Dr. Bosu, would not even be present at that annual ANPA Convention to explain the reasons for his resignation. Everyone was baffled and some were actually dumbfounded. In compliance with the Bylaws, the Presidency was thrust upon Dr.
The reason for Dr. Bosu’s resignation was never quite clear; and naturally, there were as many rumored versions of his reasons as there were members in ANPA. Recognizing the emerging danger of possible disillusionment among the ANPA membership, Dr. Obayuwana’s first official act (as the President-Elect) at the end of the Chicago Convention was to write a personal letter to each and every member of ANPA. In that letter he promised that he would never resign from the position to which he had been elected.
As evident in the above account, Dr. Aqua Don Umoren, an Obstetrician and Gynecologist, became the third and the longest serving President of ANPA-one remaining year of Dr. Bosu’s abbreviated tenure plus his own 2-year regular full tenure. He was very active and resolute in his commitment to keep ANPA alive, investing not only time, but also personal resources. Dr. Umoren, who was once a Commissioner for Health in Aqwa Ibom State, served ANPA tirelessly and very generously with all his experiential and intellectual endowments.
The fourth ANPA President was Dr. Air Force Reserve, an expert in Parliamentary procedures, whose skills in running meetings and insistence on strict adherence to parliamentary procedure, introduced discipline and decorum to the conduct of ANPA meetings. He was also the chief architect of ANPA’’s current Bylaws.
Commenting recently, during this 25th anniversary celebration, Dr. Obayuwana said: “Though we have learned how to run, we should not forget how to walk. We must always remember that before we ever walked, we first had to crawl.
Our Fifth President was the late Dr. Olusegun Rasaki Salako, an Obstetrician and Gynecologist, who was also the first and longest serving Treasurer of ANPA, the first Medical Missions Chief, and whose tenure as president was during a very challenging time for ANPA. The association was struggling financially after a failed attempt to hire a full time paid Executive Director and Dr. Salako’s cool and calm disposition was very consequential and largely responsible for convincing ANPA members to come to the rescue of the association. Spontaneous donations, voluntary pledges, and imposed levies of $500-$5000 by ANPA Board members were very frequent and common at the time. In retrospect, one cannot but marvel about those acts of collective love and individual generosity that saved ANPA-and for which especially Dr. Festus Dada, Dr. Ngozi Nwaneri, and Dr.
Our Sixth President was Dr. Emmanuel Okafor, an internist and Gastroenterologist. He broke the monopoly of Obstetricians as ANPA presidents. Dr. Okafor, for the first time in ANPA history, introduced the use of professional secretarial help to manage ANPA secretariat affairs-thus consolidating and centralizing all transactions relating to ANPA.
Our seventh President was Dr. Yele Aluko, an Internist and Interventional Cardiologist. It was during his presidency that ANPA became of age. He famously insisted on a business model for ANPA’s growth.
Our Eighth President was Dr. Julius Kpaduwa, an Obstetrician and Gynecologist, whose passion was about making ANPA relevant in Nigeria. His presidency made it possible to have the first ANPA convention in Nigeria in the year 2009 (ANPA 15th convention). It was under his presidency that ANPA began collaborative efforts with the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), a relationship that has since been continuously strengthened.
Our Ninth President was Dr Fiemu Nwariaku, a General Surgeon, who has also served as the President of the American Association of Academic Surgeons. His tenure began a very aggressive and productive advocacy activity of ANPA. It was during his tenure that we succeeded in convincing Nigerian stakeholders about changes in curriculum for medical education.
Our Tenth President was Dr. Michael Etomi, an Internist and Nephrologist.
Our Eleventh President was Dr. Nkem Chukwumerije, an Internist and Hospitalist, whose passion for service in our homeland led to the creation of ANPA Week. He organized the Week to include 3 parts: patient care, provision of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programs for physicians, and Advocacy for health care in Nigeria.
The Twelfth President was Dr. Johnson Adeyanju, an Internist and author.
Currently on this 25th anniversary year of ANPA, we are now functioning under the Thirteenth President, Dr. Charmaine Emelife, an Internist and Nephrologist. She is the first female President of ANPA, the first ANPA President to be recognized with a Chieftaincy title in Nigeria, and the first ANPA president to successfully establish partnerships with women organizations in Nigeria.
Throughout the first 25 years of ANPA existence, there is perhaps no one who has tirelessly worked and contributed so much behind the scene to promote a culture of peace, cooperation, camaraderie, and intellectual generosity within ANPA than Dr. Ajovi Scott-Emuakpor-everybody’s best friend and favorite uncle.
Perhaps the most significant phenomenon in the 25 year history of ANPA is the steadfastness of its members-particularly those members who gathered on that first faithful day in Anaheim to assemble this Association. Since its founding, the members of ANPA, have been very determined never to allow this Association to fail-in spite of a number of challenging times in its 25-year history. In medical parlance, when ANPA gasped for breath, the members provided it with oxygen. When it stumbled and could not walk, the members provided crutches to move it along. When it went into “shock”, the members provided fluids for volume replacement and vasoactive drugs to keep ANPA’s tissues perfused.
Congratulations Dr. Aham Onyike, former ANPA DMV Chair, for being recognized for excellence in the field of orthopedics! At Avante, we have introduced a new, integrated model of orthopaedic care combining surgical excellence, sports and regenerative medicine, urgent care access, and physical therapy under one roof. Grateful for the continued trust of my patients, peers, and the community that has shaped my professional journey. Appreciative of colleagues who nominated me. Congratulations to all other physicians recognized this year. Proud to be in such company.
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