He returned to the shores of Ghana almost two decades ago. The young man, Stephen Tabiri, who had left the comfort of his home at Odumase near Sunyani in the Bono Region, and the shores of his home country Ghana to study in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), had won a joint scholarship from the Governments of Ghana and the Soviet Union in 1991 for his medical training. He attained a Doctor of Medicine (MD) in Kharkov, Ukraine in 1997 and went on to attain a Doctor of Philosophy in Clinical Surgery (PhD) at the same university in 2004.

Unlike many graduates at the time, who would have stayed abroad to continue making the headlines and the money, the newly trained Dr. Stephen Tabiri returned home in 2006, to help in building the country’s health sector.

Unfortunately, he was almost frustrated upon his return. The ever-growing bureaucracy in the health sector in Ghana was taking a toll on the health care industry. Indeed, clinicians and other frontline health workers who actually helped patients were subjected to too many fragmenting directives “from above” and were forced to devise work-arounds to cope with ineffective problem-solving systems. As a result of the cumulative frustrations, Dr. Tabiri, as he was then known, flew back to Europe and returned in 2009.

In that same year, the Tamale Regional Hospital had been upgraded to a Teaching Hospital to serve as the only tertiary health provider in the whole of the Savanna regions including the Upper West and East regions, Northern Region, some parts of the then Brong–Ahafo region and the Northern parts of the Volta region. The Hospital had taken delivery of an endoscopy machine, but there was no doctor with the expertise who was readily available and who could operate the endoscopy machine.

Dr. Tabiri, in addition to his many skills, had acute knowledge of endoscopy and the use of the endoscopy machine. Unfortunately, even though he was back home in Ghana, he was not in Tamale. In fact, up until 2009, Professor Tabiri had never traveled beyond Techiman!

At the time, the Chief Executive Officer of the Tamale Teaching Hospital was Dr. Ken Sagoe. Dr. Sagoe had heard about Dr. Tabiri and his enormous knowledge and immediately reached out to him and invited him to visit Tamale.

According to Prof Tabiri, shortly after they had met, Dr. Sagoe introduced him to the endoscopy machine. And that marked the beginning of a new chapter for the young doctor. The man who was visiting Tamale for the first time, was destined to stay there for a long time!

Dr. Tabiri fondly remembers how in his early days in Tamale, after a long and tiring day, the pangs of hunger had begun to eat him up and he stepped out of his hotel room to find some food, but instead run into a group of desperate men who were in search of a doctor. One of them, Mr. Abdulai Yakubu, the then Secretary to the Gukpenaa, pleaded with him to help save the life of his wife who had been involved in an accident. Dr. Tabiri says, after listening to the man – a total stranger – he forgot about his hunger and offered to help. According to him, ever since, his relationship with the family has been very strong, perhaps one of the factors that has kept him in Tamale.

Whilst practicing as a Medical Doctor, Prof. Tabiri had an eye on the academia as well. No wonder he joined the University for Development studies as a part-time lecturer. And since then, there has never been a “looking back moment” for him. He has risen through the academic ranks to become a full professor, teaching surgery at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He is responsible for postgraduate training in surgery and the convenor of Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons’ Basic Surgical Science Training Course in the Tamale Teaching Hospital. He was very instrumental in the effort to regularize medical students who have been trained in other jurisdictions outside Ghana by taking licensing examinations with the Medical and Dental Council of Ghana.

Prof Tabiri holds a Master’s Degree in Educational Administration and Management (Med. Admin) from the University of Cape-Coast, Ghana. Additionally, he became a fellow of the West African College of Surgeons (FWACS), Dakar, Senegal in 2019 and has about forty-five (45) peer-reviewed scientific publications to his credit.

Professor Tabiri is the Ghana National Lead of Global Surgery and as a co-applicant secured more than £3.9 million in research funding to improve surgical care and outcomes in the low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). He has successfully established a Global Surgery Ghana Hub in Tamale, with the objective of building and sustaining surgical research throughout Ghana. He was recently appointed as a co-director of the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) on Global Health Unit in the University of Birmingham, UK.

Before he took up his current appointment, He was the vice-dean of UDS-SoM. 

Thursday, 28th April 2022 will represent a significant milestone in Professor Tabiri’s career, as he will be celebrating his promotion to the rank of Professor when he delivers his inaugural lecture at the Multipurpose Auditorium at the Central Campus of UDS at 2pm.

He says the lecture which will be attended by the crème de la crème in academia, will also be open to the general public.