hello dr kibbubu how are you this
morning
i'm doing fine
i'm so glad to see you after two years
even though you have been my surgeon but
i still really admire the job that you
did for my surgery thank you so much for
what you do for your patients
uh thank you for that and it's my
pleasure yeah so i just wanted to
briefly talk to you i know you have
surgeon i have you have patients waiting
for you
a little bit i know about you you grew
up in ethiopia and you came to the u.s
at a very young age
um do you want to talk about what
happened you know what made you guys
move here and your experience growing up
and the person that you became
happy to um it's somewhat of a typical
immigrant story um
political
turmoil occurs in the country yeah in my
specific situation um at the age of nine
my all my siblings were born in the
states
and uh the country at that time had
an edict to say all americans must leave
so
my mother ended up having to leave with
my uh siblings to the u.s
yeah and then i ended up living there
on my own with cousins and relatives for
a year and a half and you know at that
younger age
you learn uh to be responsible uh look
out for yourself so that was a very
impressionable moment uh and then being
reunited with my family a year and a
half after you really appreciate uh
family uh and extended family really uh
during that time that supported me at
such a young age
so there was a lot of maturing and a lot
of things that you learned typically
when the boys are just busy playing
yes exactly an environment where you
can't really be just an innocent nine or
ten year old and need to look out for
yourself and you see violence you know
in the street in the city
lived in the capital city uh and really
you you see how important life is
how important it is to make the most of
it
but you were thinking of becoming an
engineer but
eventually you became a doctor so you
did change your career path
and uh what why did you do that you know
i mean both of them are great
professions and they both require a lot
of hard work and different mindset
almost yes yes that's very true in fact
my siblings are engineers uh i really
had two events in my life uh that really
pushed me towards medicine
and that happened during my undergrad
while i was studying as a chemical
engineer
one is my nephew was born with a cardiac
congenital defect as well as esophageal
atresia
and spent nearly three months in the
neonatal icu and
that was where i did my undergraduate
was at ucla and it was at the ucla
hospital so i spent a lot of time there
visiting him and seeing all the
interventions that he required
and then it really impacted uh on what i
wanted to do as a profession uh you know
he's a lively 30 plus year old young man
and has had multiple
surgeries that he's required uh but the
impact in his life and to be able to
live a full life when you're born a blue
baby and certainly something that
doesn't you know it's not a 100
guarantee
i wanted to function in that role and
really impact other people's lives
wow
that's quite amazing that you were right
there when he needed somebody
so yeah i mean i was one of many
siblings supporting my sister but you
know once he went home you know
initially he couldn't eat because of the
salvageal atresia they didn't want to
fix it there at that time because he was
a neonate
uh and needed to be fed through a g-tube
a tube in the abdominal wall that goes
directly to the stomach
so seeing what he went through
and really how dedicated
the people taking care of him were
really opened my eyes to what a huge
impact i could make
in that in medicine really
yeah medicine is really when you really
think about
helping them it's not about making money
it's you know when you see things like
this that's when you realize that
you know you can almost be equivalent to
god
uh certainly can make significant
contributions for sure yeah it's very
gratifying
also um you were talking a little bit
about
an experience with your mother that made
you
a better yeah the the second experience
really
during
that time period was my mother uh when i
was a freshman in college uh passed away
with a from a cerebral aneurysm that
hemorrhaged
she had high blood pressure
and again that event taught me how
important it is that we take care of
ourselves preventative medicine
and to be in a situation where
unfortunately in her case there was
really nothing
modern medicine could do from an
intervention standpoint
that would have kept her alive
but both those events were really
instrumental in me wanting to do
medicine i saw
one scenario with my nephew
where the impact the interventions
were significant and saving his life
and in my mother's situation it was the
opposite there wasn't much that could be
done and that's the reason i do clinical
or translational research
and i take care of patients it's those
patients that i'm not successful
taking care of or giving them the best
outcome that they could have
that really pushes
my research ideas and the drive to do
the research wow it must be like just
thinking about both these experiences
while you're a freshman while you're
deciding your career and two people so
close to you
i mean it must have made it so hard for
you even like on a personal level right
education aside
very true very true and i i didn't
mention it also helps although
my three siblings are engineer my one
sister
was in medical school at that time so
talking to her daily
finding out the ups and downs of medical
school and what she was doing was also
fairly inspirational and me pursuing
medicine yeah so let's just talk about
you talking about your sibling i know
you're you all have very interesting
names
the whole family
how was that like were you uh
you know made fun of in school or like
was it just like i think it's a name
with a lot of character it's like a
superhero name
well uh i could say it was very
difficult growing up you're made fun of
right what kind of a name is that
during elementary school but
unfortunately for me by middle school
and high school i was one of the taller
kids so i didn't get bullied uh too much
but obviously uh thereafter as an adult
it's really been a blessing in the sense
that people are interested in meeting me
and talking to me and learning about my
name and nobody forgets doctor electron
kaboom
or better or worse right
yeah yeah it's it's been it's been great
and sort of i think uh
in a way people say branded from the
beginning you know as i think i supposed
to do engineering not medicine
yeah
but it's been a good thing uh during my
adult life for sure
thank you
dr kabu so much
and i appreciate the time you took and i
mean just the key the fact that you're
talking to me you take care of your
patients not only while you're doing the
surgery but i think otherwise also you
build a long relationship with them
thank you so much
it's my pleasure
and congratulations for doing this and i
hope people will get inspiration out of
it i hope so too thank you so much again
