Nkiruka Emeagwali is studying towards completion of a Ph.D. and medical degree at Meharry Medical College in Nashville.
Nkiruka Emeagwali’s academics demonstrate commitment that led to Meharry Medical College
By Albert C. Jones
America, The Diversity Place
NASHVILLE, Tennessee — Nkiruka Emeagwali is a medical doctor in training. She chose to come to Meharry Medical College remembering how deeply spiritual the substance of a conversation with someone on the college’s admissions staff kept lingering in her resolve.
Emeagwali endeared herself to the college’s mission of preparing healthcare practitioners to go out into the world and provide quality medical care to underserved populations. Statistical indices verify that poverty, ethnicity, gender and other factors, like being disabled, show certain and quantifiably gathered populations have very limited or no access to health care.
Besides pursuing a Doctor of Medicine, Emeagwali is about a year away from defending a doctoral dissertation in microbiology and immunology. She also holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Biomedical Engineering and a bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Before arriving at Meharry, Emeagwali found herself responding to a purview matters in a cultural context. There were new discoveries in her academic life. The realization that Meharry would offer her a unique and invaluable experience in her pursuit of a medical degree was evolving.
As an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins, Emeagwali took classes at Morgan State University, also in Baltimore, through an inter-collegiate consortium.
“It was at Morgan State University and through my involvement with the National Society of Black Engineers that I learned to have a greater appreciation for the HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) experience,” Emeagwali said. “When I was on the campus of Morgan State, I witnessed a familial-like support network. I also realized that I was 21 years old but had never experienced being taught by a black teacher.
“The students I met at Morgan State had a sense of pride, perhaps, in knowing that someone who may have had similar life experience had made it and were rooting for their success,” she said. “Mr. (Allen D.) Mosley talked about Meharry’s dedication to excellence in primary care and commitment to giving back to the community. He also spoke about Meharry’s history of offering access to quality health care to patients with little to no insurance.”
Meharry is among the oldest of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Nashville General Hospital at Meharry is the publicly supported, academically affiliated, community-based hospital in Nashville that has partnered in this service since April 23, 1890. Meharry’s mission statement says:
“Meharry Medical College exists to improve the health and health care of minority and underserved communities by offering excellent education and training programs in the health sciences; placing special emphasis on providing opportunities to people of color and individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, regardless of race or ethnicity; delivering high quality health services; and conducting research that fosters the elimination of health disparities.”
During her undergraduate studies at Johns Hopkins, there was the friendship with Diedre Clemetson, who was awarded admission to Meharry. She is now Diedre Clemetson Rowe since being married and is a pediatric resident physician at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
“Diedre spoke about her positive experiences at Meharry,” said Emeagwali, recalling another reason she wanted to come Meharry. “She was someone I had known and admired as an undergraduate. Particularly for me, I was humbled by the Meharry mission of serving the underserved. Meharry’s physicians were committed to a lifestyle where they treated patients regardless of their economic status. Meharry had a rich legacy and I wanted to be part of it.
“I thought it was a good fit for me and my goals as an aspiring physician,” she said.
Allen D. Mosley, director of admissions and recruitment for Meharry, is the one who introduced the mission of Meharry. She met Moseley through involvement in the Johns Hopkins University Minority Pre-Health Conference. Mosley talked about “Worship of God through Service of Mankind.”
After that conversation, her heading off to Meharry in Nashville became a matter of not if, but when. Since being here, Emeagwali’s excellent communications skills and outgoing personality have made a favorite and first consideration for doing interviews by the department of marketing and communications.
Gayle Starling-Melvin, brand manager for Meharry, is the one who led an interviewer to the fifth floor conference room in George W. Hubbard Hospital for the interview with Emeagwali.
Fulfillment of that latter element of the mission statement, “conducting research that fosters the elimination of health disparities,” takes place as part of Emeagwali’s academic experience at Meharry.
She is a research assistant under Dr. James Hildreth, director of the Center for AIDS Health Disparities Research at Meharry Medical College. Hildreth has done extensive HIV research mainly supported by the National Institute of Health with grants. One of his research projects at Meharry focuses on developing a topical HIV “microbicide,” what is being called a chemical condom. It is being designed to block transmission of the HIV virus.
“Working on my Ph.D. under the mentorship of Dr. Hildreth has been a life-altering experience,” Emeagwali said. “He is a very humble, articulate, and just a brilliant person, especially in the area of HIV/AIDS research. I’m honored to be part of his research team.”
Upon graduation, following the ritual of the National Residency Matching Program and “Match Day” that comes on the third Thursday of March each year, Emeagwali will pursue a residency in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics.
Her doctoral thesis, which is funded through a National Institute of Health F-31 Pre-doctoral Fellowship, focuses on “the role of host and viral proteins on HIV transcription.”
“Transcription is a key part of the HIV lifecycle,” Emeagwali said. “If we can figure out ways to block that step, then we can block the virus from successfully replicating. Our study findings will be submitted for publication this year. We hope to be one of the first groups to publish these results and share these important insights with the HIV research community.”
Emeagwali was among eleven researchers from Vanderbilt, Duke, the University of Alabama and Meharry who authored a study on “clinical factors associated with oxidant stress in HIV-infected adults.”
Contextually, the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports on its Web site that the “HIV/AIDS epidemic in African American communities is a continuing public health crisis for the United States. At the end of 2006 there were an estimated 1.1 million people living with HIV infection, of which almost half (46 percent) were black/African American.
It says, “While blacks represent approximately 12 percent of the U.S. population, they continue to account for a higher proportion of cases at all stages of HIV/AIDS — from infection with HIV to death with AIDS — compared with members of other races and ethnicities.”
Nkiruka Emeagwali’s academic experience has become a lifestyle of endurance and commitment. Without interruption, she has been a student since kindergarten.
“I have only known primarily academic environments,” she said. “Now I am ready to be a doctor. I want to make a positive impact in health care by raising awareness about personal health through education so that people are equipped for prevention and ushered into better health outcomes. With the medical degree and the doctorate, there is a lot of opportunity for innovation in the field.
“I have an in-depth understanding of the science behind how I treat my patients,” Emeagwali said. “I can understand medical procedures and treatment options before they get into science textbooks. I like having an idea and understanding of the latest medical findings and how they may potentially shape the practice of medicine.”
The path to academics and eventually medical school started in Emeagwali home in Queens and gained momentum through participation in programs throughout New York and then all across the country.
“I had really great elementary and high school teachers,” Emeagwali said. “Although I grew up in an inner city, I also had access to free science and math enrichment programs with great teachers and mentors. These experiences gave me the confidence that I needed, at a young age, to dare to think that I could major in biomedical engineering at the number one program in the country. It was the positive didactic experiences that I had in my youth that fueled my interest to effectively teach.”
Meharry is the largest private HBCU dedicated solely to educating healthcare professionals and scientists. The School of Medicine receives more than 4,000 applications a year but admits only 100 of those applicants. There are more than 3,000 applicants each year to the School of Dentistry; 55 are admitted annually.
Emeagwali was asked to give a word to aspiring students. She asked what age-group? Middle and high school students were suggested.
“Don’t ever let anyone tell you can’t do what you want to do as long as you are willing to work hard for it,” she said. “No matter how long it takes, keep your focus and be determined. Don’t let difficulties or life’s circumstances stop you. Work hard and be prepared to make whatever sacrifices necessary to achieve your goals. Once you get through it, it will have been well-worth the struggle.
“Also don’t forget the people that you left behind,” Emeagwali said. “We have to help to pull them through and help them achieve their goals, too. Always come back home to where you grew up and tell people about your experiences and what you have learned. We have to work together.”
Emeagwali is a certified peer tutor for medical and dental students on campus in the Meharry Center for Educational Development.
“I love tutoring,” she said. “I remember what it was like to be lost in my first year of medical school. I was one of the students who did not always understand the material immediately. I had to come up with creative ways to learn the subject matter. Peer tutoring allows me to leverage from the mistakes I made and lessons I learned and give back to my peers at Meharry.”
Tutoring philosophies, for sure, have broader applications.
“I believe that if you capture the interest of children at an early age, by providing them with a positive science and math experience, then you have a greater chance of allowing them to develop the confidence they need to consider the reality of a career in math or science,” Emeagwali said.
In the near future, with medical degree and doctorate in hand, she could take any assortment or combination of career paths.
“I’m leaning toward staying in academia, teaching, writing books and doing research,” she said. “I’m keeping an open mind. I’m definitely open to exploring new opportunities. The reason I chose to do research in HIV/AIDS is because there are huge health disparities in HIV among African Americans. AIDS is currently the number one killer of African American women in my age group.”
During the rancorous legislative process that ultimately saw the passage of healthcare reform legislation by Congress, citizen Emeagwali, along with others from Doctors for America, went to Washington, D.C. to rally and lobby members of their respective congressional delegations for passage of the healthcare bill. The trip was made during the weekend that the bill finally passed and then awaited President Obama’s signature to become law.
“This is an exciting time to be involved in health care,” Emeagwali said. “The passing of the health care bill has re-energized those interested in primary care. The bill that passed the Congress and Senate has opened up tremendous opportunities that will enable physicians to better accomplish their goals of providing quality health care to the American people.”
In the day, at the Johns Hopkins University, Emeagwali was a star sprinter who ruled the Centennial Conference indoor and outdoor championships. In 1997, she was the individual champion. In addition, she and her biomedical engineering lab partners received the award for best senior design project in the Department of Biomedical Engineering during their Johns Hopkins University commencement ceremony.
The name Emeagwali is Nigerian. Her parents are Igbo, also called Ibo or Ebo. She was born in Queens, New York. Her mother is a social worker and her father a telephone technician. Emeagwali had one uncle in her immediate family who was a general practitioner in Nigeria.
Nkiruka Emeagwali has two brothers and a sister. Her oldest brother is a criminal defense attorney in Queens and her younger brother, a Howard alumnus, works in the banking industry. Her sister also received and engineering degree and has just completed her Juris Doctorate at Howard University.
Nkiruka Emeagwali works on HIV research led by Dr. James Hildreth in the 5001 Laboratory of the George W. Hubbard Hospital at Meharry Medical College.