by Bennet Omalu
I raised objections to my superiors. At best, other doctors just shrugged their shoulders and said something like, “That’s just how things are.”
“But that doesn’t mean that’s how they have to be!” I objected. I know I was young and idealistic, but even now, more than two decades later, I still cannot accept the excuse that “that’s just how things are.” I encounter this sort of collective ignorance that I call conformational intelligence wherever I go. Frankly, I find it to be one of the greatest barriers to effecting real change in contact sports in America. I find it to be more than simply accepting a bad situation as fait accompli. Rather, conformational intelligence willingly closes one’s eyes to the obvious negative outcomes and calls their very existence into question. I could not go along with this when I was a young doctor any more than I can today. I find it maddening.
I define conformational intelligence as a phenomenon whereby the way you think and perceive the world, including your sense of right and wrong and good and evil, are controlled, constrained, and constricted by the expectations, cultures, traditions, norms, and mores of the society around you without you even knowing it or being aware of it. As a result, when objective, factual evidence is presented to you that runs counter to the conformational cast of your mind, you deny and reject that evidence, even though it is true and your preconceived ideas are false.
Some people have told me that if I had grown up in this country and become consumed by the conformational intelligence surrounding football, there was no way I could have performed an autopsy on Mike Webster. I would have been in so much awe of him that I would not have touched his body. Mike Webster had seen some of the best physicians and surgeons in the best hospitals in the United States, but those physicians, because of their conformational fascination, love, and infatuation with football, did not link football with Mike Webster’s ailments. It took an outsider like myself, who did not conform to America’s cast of the mind about football, to objectively link Mike Webster’s ailments to football and identify CTE. Yet when I presented my findings to the same best doctors in the United States, they ridiculed, dismissed, and tried to discredit me and my work because it challenged their cast of the mind about football.
My raising objections to the way things were falling into line with the conformational intelligence around me caused other doctors to see me with suspicious eyes. Yet I could not keep quiet. God and His Spirit within me would not allow me to stay silent. As a child of God and a recipient of life from Him, I owe it to Him to be the best I can be and to glorify Him in all I do. I felt very frustrated that no one else seemed to share this conviction.
The tipping point for me came late one night when a man was rushed into my emergency room. He had just been involved in a car wreck. When he came into the ER, he was awake and alert. However, his vitals started going down quickly. I examined him and discovered he had suffered a major vascular injury in his abdomen and was bleeding internally. However, our hospital did not have a trauma or vascular surgeon available. I called the general surgeon on duty and explained the situation. “If we don’t get him into surgery, he’s going to die,” I said.
“I’ll get back to you,” the general surgeon said. But he never did. I called back. No answer. For reasons he never felt compelled to explain to me, the general surgeon refused to operate on the young man.
The young man’s pain increased as he began to slip in and out of consciousness. I tried to make him comfortable. Apart from performing an operation myself—and I had not been trained in any type of surgery, so doing the operation myself was not an option—there was nothing I could do to help him. Over the next thirty minutes, I stood by the man’s bed, helplessly watching his life slip away until death finally took him. His life could easily have been saved, but there was no one in the hospital able to save him.
I knew the system was broken, but I was still young and filled with youthful idealism. I thought the system could be repaired. When Nigeria’s leaders scheduled a presidential election for 1993, the first since military dictator General Babangida and others had taken control over the nation in a 1983 coup, I thought real change was just around the corner. The government promised that these would be fair and open elections, true democracy in action. Patterning ourselves after America, two political parties were formed—the Social Democratic Party and the National Republican Convention. I joined the SDP. The SDP candidate for president was a wealthy, charismatic man named Moshood Abiola. He was a billionaire and a member of the Yoruba tribe. Even though he was a Muslim, he was very friendly toward Christians. He grew up in a Christian environment and attended Christian schools. His opponent was a Hausa Muslim, Bashir Tofa, who chose an Igbo man, Sylvester Ugoh, as his vice-presidential candidate.
The election filled our nation with hope. I was so excited by the prospect of a civilian leader who might actually put the people’s best interests first that I campaigned for Abiola. This was to be our country’s rebirth. International observers were brought in to oversee the election to ensure its fairness. On the day of the election, I went to my assigned polling place. Rather than cast a paper ballot, people lined up in a designated place to show their support for either the SDP or the NRC candidate. Once everyone was in line, representatives from both parties walked down the line, counting the votes. Their results were certified by Western observers. The entire process was carried out in a very orderly fashion. No one rioted. No one cheated. I think we were all too excited by the prospect of actually having our voices heard to even think of trying to silence the other side.
Because of the way the votes were cast, it was obvious on Election Day that Abiola would win easily. Perhaps that was one of the reasons that the election was carried out the way it was. By having each candidate’s supporters publicly show their support, no one was going to be surprised by the results. The announced results fell in line with what everyone already knew. I thought that change had finally arrived.
And then, eleven days after the election, the military dictator, General Babangida, suddenly announced in a nationally televised speech that he had annulled the election results. He claimed the election had not been free and fair. Even today, twenty-three years later, Nigerians around the world continue to protest this action. However, at the time, there was nothing we could do. When I heard the announcement, I sat down and wept for my country. I went into my bedroom, shut the door, and cried loudly. Our only hope had been crushed. Instead of a freely elected president, we were stuck with a corrupt government that did not care about its people. I knew right then that there was no future for me in my home country. For me to remain there for the rest of my life would mean conforming to the traditions, norms, mores, and expectations of a corrupt society. It would mean I had accepted the conformational intelligence of that society and fallen into the perspective that this is the way life is going to be. Staying and fighting to change the system was not an option, at least not in the context of my family’s and my Igbo people’s history. Change had already been attempted, and it ended in disaster.
I felt I had no future in Nigeria, but I believed I knew where my future could be found. As a child, I had discovered a place called the United States of America. America sets you free to be whatever you want to be, to dream and achieve impossible dreams. A place filled with the most intelligent people on earth. I fell in love with America from afar. At night I fell asleep dreaming of the United States, only to awaken each morning in a world where little children died in my care because the hospital where I worked did not have the most basic medicines needed to cure preventable diseases.
• • • •
I wanted to go to America, but I could not just pack my bags and hop on the next plane. The United States makes very few visas available for those who are not immediate relatives of United States citizens. The process of obtaining one of these visas is far more complicated, and far costlier, than I ever could have imagined. (From the time I first entered the United States in 1995 until I became a citizen tw
enty years later, I spent more than $100,000 on immigration fees, attorney fees, visa application and renewal fees, and related expenses.) I had no idea where to start in the process, so I did what I always do when I need wisdom and guidance: I prayed to God. I did not pray, God, let me go to America. Instead I prayed, Father, let Your Spirit guide me. I do not believe my future lies in Nigeria. You show me where You want me to go. May Your Spirit lead me, and I will follow.
In addition to prayer, I went to the library and started researching possible places where I could move and pursue my future. I wanted to go to America, but I knew I needed options if it did not work out. Because I was fluent in English, I focused primarily on English-speaking countries. I read books about Australia and New Zealand, both of which appealed to me. New Zealand had a program for doctors to come in and serve underserved minorities in rural areas. Australia had a similar program. I wrote to both countries’ embassies and requested application papers. At the same time, I continued exploring ways to get to America.
Unfortunately, my efforts to get to the United States led me nowhere. There wasn’t a program to which I could apply. However, to keep my options open, I began studying for the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE). I knew that for me to go to America, God was going to have to throw open the door. However, I also knew that I had to be ready when that door opened. I didn’t even need a door. If God just cracked a window of opportunity, I was determined to do the rest. And guess what? He did!
I continued working as an emergency room physician at the university hospital in Jos. My colleagues laughed at me when they saw me studying for the USMLE. “Bennet, you are such a dreamer. You are a single African man. No one is ever going to let you into America. Instead of wasting your time studying for something that is never going to happen, you need to apply to one of the residency programs here in Nigeria,” they said to me. Several well-meaning senior physicians pulled me aside and urged me to stop chasing an impossible dream. “You will only come away disappointed and hurt,” they said.
Rather than listen to them, I trusted God. I believed that God knew me better than I knew myself. He created me. He knows the number of strands of hair on my head. Before He ever created me, He knew the purpose and plan He has for my life. I believe He placed the aspirations in my heart so that He could place me where He wanted me to go and serve humanity. I had long ago given up my silly childhood dreams of grandeur. I simply wanted to go and do what God had in mind for me. I trusted Him and surrendered my all to Him.
One day, I went into work at the hospital for my afternoon shift. Most days, I was on duty from 2:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. and spent all of my time with patients. On this day, I arrived at the hospital early and went through the department, talking with the staff and nurses before going to my office. When I got to my desk, I noticed a letter lying there that did not look like a typical letter. The letterhead and quality of the paper made it clear it had come from an outside country. I grabbed the letter and quickly read it. It came from the World Health Organization in Lyons, France. The letter announced that the International Agency for Research on Cancer had started a fellowship program at several universities in the United States. The IARC pledged to sponsor any candidate who applied and was accepted as a visiting scholar to study the epidemiology of cancer.
After reading the letter, I sank down in my chair in awe. I shared this desk with other busy ER physicians. Our emergency room was a crazy place, with people running in and out constantly. Yet it seemed that this letter had been placed on this desk, undisturbed, just waiting for me to find it. No other physician had grabbed it. It had not fallen on the floor, like most papers on the desks in this room did. I believed that the hand of God placed it right here for me to find.
Because the letter and the program were open to any physician who cared to apply, I made a copy for myself and placed the original on the bulletin board, where all the other doctors could see it. The next day, the letter was gone. I never knew what happened to it.
Over the next two weeks, I went through all the instructions in the letter and did everything the program required. I wrote a letter of intent and attached a copy of my curriculum vitae, and I sent both to the address provided in Lyons. I also sent a copy to the University of Washington in Seattle, which was one of the participating universities. A few months later, I went to my desk at the hospital and found an envelope waiting for me. I picked it up and saw the seal of the University of Washington. I said a quick prayer and opened the letter. “Dear Dr. Omalu,” it read, “we are happy to inform you that you have been accepted into the visiting scholar program . . .” I wanted to shout out with joy, but I did not because I was at work. This was nothing less than God at work. He had opened the window. I was going to America. A couple of weeks after I received the letter from the University of Washington, the IARC wrote to inform me that I had received the scholarship which covered the cost of my studies.
God had answered my prayers, but I had no clue as to where I was going. I had no idea where Seattle even was. I even thought it was pronounced “See-tul.” All I knew was that it was somewhere in America. My mind had no comprehension of the size and scope of the United States.
Even with the invitation to join the program, I still had more prayers that needed to be answered. The university informed me that before I could start the program, I had to deposit $10,000 in a U.S. bank account, which would cover all my living expenses for the year of study. I may have been a doctor, but I did not make much money. Nor did anyone in my family have an extra ten grand lying around to give me. I went back to prayer. God answered it through my family as a whole. My brother-in-law Sam, my sister Uche’s husband, gave me $6,000. My sister Winny’s husband, Chuma, gave me $1,000, as did my uncle Remy. I saved up the other $2,000 from my job.
Once I had my money in hand, I thought I was ready to go to America, but my father stepped in and stopped me. “Bennet is too young and immature to go to America and live on his own in a foreign country,” he informed my entire family. “He needs to wait one year before he accepts this position.” Even though I was twenty-five years old and anxious to get on with life, I realized God was speaking through my father. The University of Washington and the IARC allowed me to defer my entry into the program for one year. The year did not go to waste. I continued studying for, and passed, my USMLE. Now all I had to do was apply for my visa. I assumed the process would be quick and easy. I was about to receive a huge dose of reality. Thankfully, I was also about to learn a lesson about the faithfulness of God and how He turns ordinary people into angels.
Chapter Five
“Heaven Is Here, and America Is Here”*
When I told my friends and coworkers I was going to America, they laughed at me. “Don’t waste your time,” they told me. “The United States will not grant you a visa. I don’t know why you are even trying.”
“That can’t be true,” I replied. I had already been invited to come to the United States by the University of Washington and had deposited into a bank all the money I was going to need during my one-year visiting scholar program. How could I not receive a visa? I wondered.
“It is true,” came the same reply in multiple conversations. Over and over, friends told me, “If you even get an interview in the U.S. Embassy, they won’t look you in the eye because you are a single, young, black Nigerian man.” Apparently, Nigerians had a bad rap internationally, and I did not know it. “The U.S. Embassy officials will just take one look at your passport, stamp it ‘rejected,’ and tell you to get out. They treat us like animals, not people.”
I refused to believe this could be true. However, I still had to recognize what I had heard and act accordingly. I started praying these words from Isaiah 43:
Remember not the events of the past,
the things of long ago consider not;
See, I am doing something new!
Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
In the wilderness I make a way,
in the wasteland, rivers.
Wild beasts honor me,
jackals and ostriches,
For I put water in the wilderness
and rivers in the wasteland
for my chosen people to drink,
The people whom I formed for myself,
that they might recount my praise.1
You make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, I prayed. I know You will make a way for me.
The time for my visa interview was at hand, which meant I had to travel to Nigeria’s most populous city, Lagos, which is where the United States Embassy was located. My sister Winny and her husband lived in Lagos, so I stayed with them while I was there.
The day before my interview, I spent an extended period of time in prayer and reading my Bible. If what I had been told was true, then I needed divine intervention to have any chance of receiving a visa. As I prayed, I felt moved by the Spirit to visit the United States Information Service (USIS) office. The USIS was the American agency that oversaw the exchange visitor program under which fell my visiting scholar program. I did not know if they had anything to do with the visa process, but I felt they should be aware of me and why I was trying to go to America. I did not know if they could help me, but I figured going there could not hurt.
I dressed in my nicest suit, left my sister Winny’s house, and took a cab to the USIS office on Lagos Island. When I walked in, I said hello to the receptionist, a young Nigerian woman, and then announced, “I would like to see the director.” Why I chose the director rather than any of the other staff members there, I cannot say. The Spirit that lives within us is a bold Spirit, and I believe He directed me.
