Get to Know Dr. Rita Eburuoh, Clinical Director of the PDPH Health Center #5

Throughout my term as a Patient Advocate at Health Center #5, I have met one-on-one with my clinical director, Dr. Rita Eburuoh, for supervision, discussion, and mentorship. I admire her strong passion for public health so I was eager to sit down to chat about her career path as I, too, aspire to combine medicine and public health in a community-based setting.

Dr. Rita Eburuoh is the clinical director of Health Center #5, a North Philadelphia ambulatory clinic run by the PDPH, and my host site. She attended medical school at the University of Nigeria and completed her residency in Family Medicine at Howard University. Dr. Eburouh began working for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health in 2003.

Q. What inspired you to pursue medicine?

To be honest, I didn’t know I was going to be a doctor. I was always interested in science, and my older brother encouraged me to go into pharmacy. But when I thought about it, I said to myself: ‘Hm, why not see the actual sick patients?’ My highest inspiration was our family physician in Nigeria. He was the best. When we went to go see him, sometimes he wouldn’t even give us medication, but we would still feel better, just seeing him, and the illness would go away. I thought, I can do this for people too.

Q. When did you first become interested in public health?

After medical school, I volunteered for a year in a program similar to AmeriCorps. In Nigeria, it’s called youth service, where you offer one year to serve your country. It was mandatory for all college graduates. I actually worked for the Public Health Department with the Ministry of Health. My role was to see all types of patients, and I volunteered as a general practitioner there, seeing pediatric and adult patients. It was there that I first became exposed to public health, and I became interested in pursuing it more.

Q.  What do you enjoy about public health and working at Health Center #5?

Being a public servant has always been what I wanted to do. It is very fulfilling to give care to those who have nowhere else to go. The patients are appreciative of the work you do. You can sense it, even if they don’t show it. Just being there for the patient when they really need you is so fulfilling to me.

Some patients come to you with such high BPs [blood pressure], and initially, I may feel angry that they are not taking their medications. But when I ask them about it, they tell me they don’t have insurance and have nowhere to go to seek care. These are the patients who come to us. When they come here, we can provide prescriptions, give them a comprehensive medical exam, and prevent disease. We do a lot of preventative care here, including colon cancer screening, mammography, and cervical cancer screenings. One thing I love about public health and the Philadelphia health centers is that even when a patient has a more advanced disease, I can refer them to a tertiary care institution. For us, it’s Temple. I can refer them to see a cardiologist, a pulmonologist, or a nephrologist. Even patients with fractures, I can send them to an orthopedist. We never have to say, “There’s nothing we can do.” All of those things, I remember, and even when I’m tired, I look forward to coming to work each day.

Q. Why are the PDPH health centers important in Philadelphia?

Here, at Health Center #5, we have 50% insured patients and 50% uninsured patients. If we aren’t here for our uninsured patients, where can they get care? They turn to the emergency room, which is very expensive, even for routine issues. When you see patients here, you prevent certain things from happening. You can diagnose them with pre-diabetes or diabetes, or hypertension. These are the patients who would have gone to the ER for stroke or diabetic coma. We prevent uncalled-for ER visits.

Q. What do you enjoy most about having an AmeriCorps program on site?

It’s awesome. We do have an on-site pharmacy with prescription medications, but a lot of the medications we need are not available there. AmeriCorps has been one of the best programs to come to us. It is so fulfilling when we can provide medications for existing and new patients because many of them can’t afford it. Some can barely feed themselves. So when they are prescribed expensive medications, they won’t go for it. This is where the AmeriCorps program comes in. You are just a phone call away, and we can refer them over to you very easily. It is very fulfilling for the physicians here to not have to switch medications for a patient when it is not available in our pharmacy. You can’t beat that.
 

This post was written by PHC member Maalika Banerjee.
Maalika serves at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health - Ambulatory Health Services as a Patient Assistance Program Advocate.