Studying medicine as a profession takes quite some courage, focus and determination. Then a step further to become a specialist is a harvest, only for the diligent. Against all odds and unbrotherly records, Dr Olurotimi Badero is the only certified cardio-nephrologist (Combined Heart & Kidney Specialist Physician) in the world.
He was nursed by his father; Chief Eliab Olufemi Badero was a typist and administrative manager at Scoa Motors and his mother who worked as a secretary at Barley Bank in the early 1970s. The right-hand man of his father was Badero. He was always seen with his father and had a lot of prescriptions to life and it battles at an early age. His father wanted him to become an Engineer, but after having a long talk with his father, he was able to persuade his father of his dreams of becoming a medical doctor.
With an adequate dose of nurturing and grooming by his father, Badero made it through secondary school education at Federal Government College’s Odogbolu, Ogun State with flying colours. After his undergraduate study, at Obafemi Awolowo University Badero proceeded to medical school. Before relocating to the US, Badero worked at General Hospital Isolo Lagos State.
The rough path to success was not diverted on Badero’s successful journey. He lost his 11-month-old sister to bronchopneumonia. He passed his final exam was coming home to share the good news when he had an accident, which got him injured. He got home bruises and received the sad news of his brother’s death. He never got a chance to celebrate been a physician.
Howbeit the sounds of success were the melodies that Badero craved for. With his determined heart, he travelled to the U.S and sat for US national training exams for foreign doctors and also completed a three-year internal medicine residency training at the State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Medical Center in 2004. He said, “ I drove the cab during the day, and I prepared for my exams at night. I did not have money to buy books, but I used the library. I remember a time I had to eat only bread for 3 days. I learnt very early in life that a goal without a plan is only a wish and that there is no testimony without a test. The only time that success comes before work is in the dictionary. I also learnt from my dad the value of hard work, as well as, perseverance and not letting the moments define you but defining the moment by embracing the challenge.”
After completing his national exams, Dr Badero got admitted into the Emory University School of Atlanta where got another degree in nephrology and hypertension.
He discovered that he lost patients to heart-related disease than it was to kidney-related diseases. That prompted the study of cardiology he said, “That was a challenge I had to embrace being someone, whose decision to be a physician was to make a difference. I realized it was very difficult for me to make that difference, albeit we were taking care of patients and they were living longer. So that set the stage for me to decide if I wanted to explore ways of becoming more effective. I started toying with the idea of going back to specialise in cardiology because I really wanted to get to the bottom of the problem.”
Badero became a specialist in seven different fields. By training, He said, “I specialised in internal medicine, cardiovascular medicine, invasive & interventional cardiology, nephrology and hypertension, interventional nephrology & endovascular medicine, nuclear cardiology as well as peripheral vascular interventions. Putting all that together, I would like to think of myself as an interventional cardio nephrologist as well as a peripheral vascular interventionalist. Altogether, I spent ten years of continuous post-graduate medical training which I later found out was unprecedented.”
Apart from being a medical doctor, Dr Badero is a motivational speaker and an assistant pastor at Redeemed Christian Church of God, Vine Chapel in Jackson, Mississippi.
He was inducted into several academic and national societies including the American College of Physicians (FACP), American Society of Nephrology (FASN), National Kidney Foundation (FNKF), American Society of Diagnostic & Interventional Nephrology (FASDIN), American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (FASNC), International College of Angiology (FICA), American Society of Angiology (FASA), American College of Cardiology (FACC) and the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (FSCAI).
