Gifty Kwakye, MD, MPH, FACS, FASCRS

Scott R. Steele, MD, MBA, FACS, FASCRS, FPSCRS (Hon.)

Dr. Gifty Kwakye is an Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Michigan and serves as the Medical Student Clerkship Director for the Surgery Department and the Director for Medical Student Programs in the Office for Health Equity and Inclusion. She was born in Ghana, Africa, and completed her secondary school education there prior to moving to the United States in pursuit of her dream of becoming a doctor. Dr. Kwakye obtained both her undergraduate and medical degrees from Yale University, and holds a Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, MD. She is board certified in General Surgery after completing her General Surgery Training at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, MA, as well as Colorectal Surgery, completing her training at the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Kwakye is a gifted researcher, writer, and educator, with multiple peer-reviewed articles and book chapters to her credit. Her research interests lie in improving health disparities globally, tackling colorectal cancer screening, and addressing treatment outcomes amongst populations in Africa, as well as immigrants here in the United States. She also conducts research on pelvic floor disorders that occur due to female genital circumcision.

She has two daughters who are budding global health specialists. They have spent time during the pandemic trying to come up with a solution to the COVID-19 crisis. So far, they have collectively come up with 1) design a COVID pill that tastes like ice cream and make it free, 2) have Santa deliver free soaps, gloves, and tissue papers to every person in the world so they can wash the virus away; and 3) give children little microscopes so they can check their hands for the virus before and after they go out to play—that way they do not spread it and can wash it away!

She is a life-long learner and takes every opportunity to learn something new from patients, staff, students, residents, and colleagues. To help facilitate this, she derives a lot of joy serving in different teaching/mentoring roles and engaging in community outreach through the University of Michigan Cancer Center. As a mother of two young girls, she spends most of her time outside of work trying to make precious memories to hold on to for the times when they are not together. Many of those memories center around leaning into their creative exploits—be it cooking in the kitchen, putting together a Lego set (without the manual!), or taking walks to photograph nature. She also deeply cares about citizenship, and her family enjoys performing community service projects and coming up with solutions to small and big problems that affect our community.

On behalf of the readers and staff of Clinics in Colon and Rectal Surgery, I sincerely acknowledge Dr. Kwakye for serving as a Guest Editor and for providing us with a superb issue on Global Medicine and Health.

Publication History

Article published online:
13 September 2022