On Research Day

Research Day is one of my favorite days of the year in the Hospital. . .the whole hospital comes together and presents the questions we asked, the ones we answered an how we are striving to make things better across the hospital. Most studies are descriptions – they tell the story of what we have done, but some are interventional, showing how what we changed affected care.

This year was our 5 year anniversary. We had published over 25 papers, presented 65 posters, and presented new grants to grow research for our Rising Stars in the Kijabe research world.

This research day was particularly emotional, because it is Dr. Mary Adam’s last research day as our head of research. She started 5 years ago, and has grown the department and the people in it (including me) in ways that we could only have imagined. She is a mentor, a friend, a dreamer, and a confidant. She brings research celebrities to Kijabe each year (including her husband, a research giant in his own right) to push us, teach us, and make us better – and to advocate for what Kijabe is doing.

The most amazing part about her leadership, is that Research Day, her brain child, will persist without her – it has become a part of Kijabe, a part of the way we measure how we are growing and what we are doing. It is a legacy of what God is asking us to do in Kijabe – to answer African questions with African data and African leadership.