Dr Philip Ozuah Donates $1 Million To University of Ibadan Medical College

Dr Philip Ozuah has donated $1 million to the University of Ibadan Medical College.

Newsone reports that the President and CEO of Montefiore Medicine in New York, United States of America (USA), Dr. Philip Ozuah is trending in Nigeria for good, following his donation of a whopping $1 million to his alma mater, the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Oyo State, southern Nigeria.

This online news platform understands that the $1 million by Dr Philip Ozuah was on Monday, August 1, 2022, during a Zoom meeting of alumni called by Prof Adebola Ogunbiyi, the acting dean of the college.

Newsone Nigeria reports that the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, which had produced many great doctors, is now being faced with infrastructure decay, hence, prompting Ogunbiyi to seek the help of old students.

She is aware that the Nigerian government is too broke to fund it, so she came up with a masterstroke, which was to tap into the resources and social capital of the alumni produced by the medical college scattered all over the world to give the medical college a facelift.

A Zoom meeting was fixed on Monday, two days ago, and the link was sent to the former students of the medical college.

Starting off the meeting, Prof. Ogunbiyi narrated the challenges and plight the current medical students at the college are facing, noting that the current medical students at the college need a new hostel and their classes also need to be refurbished.

Professor Ogunbiyi ended her speech by appealing to the alumni of the college to support her in rebuilding and restoring the lost glory of the medical college.

The speech of the acting Dean of the college opened the floodgates of donations from the medical doctors produced by the University of Ibadan Medical College.

As the donations trickled in between the range of N200,000 to N1 million, Dr. Philip Ozuah left mouths agape as he announced his donation.

Philip Ozuah did not say too much as he went straight to the point of making a donation of $1,000,000 (N700,000,000) in Naira, the exchange rate on the day the donation was made.

One report said the money will come in cash and kind. There was no further donation after his own, as the amount he donated is about N700 million.

Giving reason for the huge donation, he reportedly told the meeting that UI’s medical college shaped and refined him into the man he is today, so he has the duty to give back to the school.

When Dr. Philip announced the $1,000,000 donation, all the old students in the zoom session began shouting, “Wow!” Wow…

Even the dean who called the zoom meeting was speechless as she did not see that coming.

None of the old students of the medical college could donate again since Ozuah had set a standard they could not match.

From shouting Wow! Wow! The Zoom fundraising meeting came to an end with the closing prayer said immediately.

Dr Philip Ozuah.

Meanwhile, Newsone reports that Philip Ozuah had his medical degree certification at the University of Ibadan and did his internship at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital before he proceeded to Southern California for his Master’s program and got his Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The Anambra-born Ozuah completed his Pediatric Internship and Residency at Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore, and his Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Southern California School of Medicine.

According to the website of Montefiore Medicine, Ozuah’s Montefiore Medicine is the umbrella organization for the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Montefiore Health System’s 13 member hospitals, 300 ambulatory sites, and 7.5 million patient encounters per year.

The Anambra-born Ozuah leads an organization with 10,000 physicians and 53,000 employees serving a diverse group of patients.

A National Institutes of Health (NIH)–funded researcher and award-winning educator, he also served as Professor and University Chairman of Pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Physician-in-Chief of Children’s Hospital at Montefiore.

The doctor also leads the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, one of the nation’s premier centers for research, medical education, and clinical investigation. Einstein receives more than $200 million in annual research awards from the NIH and is home to 800 M.D. students, 190 Ph.D. students, 120 students in the combined M.D./Ph.D. program, and 250 postdoctoral research fellows.

Dr Philip Ozuah started his role as MD and CEO of Montefiore on Nov. 15, 2019, succeeding Steven M. Safyer, M.D., who retired after 40 years of service to Einstein and Montefiore.