Doctor Olufemi Babatunde Omole appointed Academic Head of Family Medicine
- L.R
Doctor Olufemi Babatunde Omole was appointed Academic Head for the Division of Family Medicine in the Department of Family Medicine.
Doctor Olufemi Babatunde Omole has been appointed Academic Head for the Division of Family Medicine in the Department of Family Medicine (effective from 01 January 2017).
Dr Omole was Head of Clinical Unit (Family medicine) in the Sedibeng District Specialist Team and joint academic appointment with Wits since 2006. He has more than 22 years of experience in public service, 18 of which have involved academic teaching. His knowledge of health systems in peri-urban settings and extensive experience of the peripheral teaching sites will be invaluable as the Faculty extends the teaching platforms and grows the speciality of Family Medicine.
He will be responsible for the academic programmes in Family medicine – both undergraduate and postgraduate, including BHSc, the GEMP 1 to 4 and MMed / Registrar programmes, across the 7 districts in Gauteng and North West provinces.
“I am excited to play a leadership role in the Faculty in terms of the evolution of Family Medicine as a new speciality in South Africa. My experience is firmly embedded in the history of this speciality and I hope to use my academic knowledge, specifically in terms of the training, to shape what Family Medicine becomes.”
As an active member of the South African Academy of Family Practice and the College of Family Physicians (SA), Dr Omole is keen to play an advocacy role more broadly. “The kind of family practitioners we will be producing is so important. They must be clinically astute and very skilled to handle the clinical interface, right from the home of the patient through the community, to the primary healthcare system. It is our role to help our students become “generalist specialist” as they switch between patients and adapt to the community settings.
Dr Omole’s career in Family Medicine and public service serves as an example to any aspiring Family Medicine student. He graduated MBBS in 1989 from the College of Medicine, University of Lagos and completed a postgraduate Diploma in Anaesthesia degree from the same university in 1994. In 1996, he enrolled in the postgraduate training in Family Medicine at the Medical University of Southern Africa (MEDUNSA) and qualified by examination, the Membership of the College of Family Physicians of South Africa [MCFP(SA)] in May 1998 and Masters of Medicine in Family medicine[MMed] from MEDUNSA in 2002.
Dr Omole began his career in South Africa as a Senior Medical Officer in January 1995 at Letaba Hospital. In 1998, he became a Principal Medical Officer in the same hospital, in a joint appointment with MEDUNSA as a Part-Time lecturer. Here he was involved with full-time undergraduate teaching in Family Medicine and primary care at Shiluvana unit of the Department of Family Medicine at MEDUNSA. In April 2003, he was appointed Senior Specialist Family Physician and Senior Lecturer at Polokwane Hospital and MEDUNSA and progressed quickly to become Principal Specialist / District Family Physician in Mopani District of Limpopo Province in November 2003. In October 2006, he transferred to Gauteng province as the District Family Physician and Principal Specialist in Sedibeng District. In this role, he took over the clinical and academic leadership in the district, establishing the Sedibeng District training complex in Family medicine. This complex caters for the fully accredited GEMP4, BCMP, Internship and MMED training programmes.
In terms of research, Dr Omole intends to see an increase in translational and implementation research within the community context, as it is encouraged and supported by the Faculty. His own research interest has spanned the areas of tobacco use and health, quality of clinical care of chronic diseases of lifestyle in primary healthcare, the health system, psychosocial aspects of medicine and anaesthesia in general practice. He has authored or co-authored 23 scientific articles in South African and international journals and conducts editorial reviews for a number of journals including the South African Family Practice Journal and the African Journal of Primary Care and Family medicine. “Translation and context-based research doesn’t just happen at the central academic facilities, it is needed in the peri-urban extended training platforms too,” concludes Dr Omole.