Jacqueline Wanjiku Kagima, MD, MSc, PhD, ATSF
Department of Medicine (Respiratory and critical care unit)
Kenyatta National Hospital
Nairobi, Kenya 

Three statements about you – two true, one false.

• I have skydived in Diani, Kenya.
• I have done gorge swinging in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.
• I competed in a swimming competition in high school.

Give us your ‘elevator pitch’ biography.

I graduated from the University of Nairobi (UoN) School of Medicine and received my MD degree in 2007. I completed my internal medicine residency in 2013 at UoN School of Medicine. I went ahead to pursue a masters in respiratory medicine and a masters in global health research from the University of South Wales and Lancaster University respectively, in the U.K. I graduated with a PhD in clinical sciences in December 2022 from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, U.K.

I am the secretary of the Respiratory Society of Kenya and the Pan African Thoracic Society (PATS) and an active member of international medical societies like the American Thoracic Society (ATS) and the European Respiratory Society (ERS).

I am proud to be a faculty of ATS Methods in Epidemiologic Clinical and Operations Research (MECOR) Program-PATS, which transformed my life as a researcher and enabled me to get great mentors and opportunities. I received the “Job Bwayo Award for Science in Lung Health” from the Respiratory Society of Kenya in 2022. Over the years I have received the MECOR graduate research award (2014) and several ATS International Trainee Scholarship awards. My areas of research interest are chronic respiratory diseases and how these interplay with acute respiratory diseases with a keen focus on less resourced settings.

 
What would you tell yourself as an Early Career Professional?

Establish productive daily habits and learn to reflect on all types of feedback.

If you weren’t in medicine, and were in a different industry altogether, what would you be?

If I wasn’t in medicine, I would be an FBI, CIA, or special agent. I just love how they walk and dress, and the black shades from the movies.

What is your favorite way to spend a day off? 

Travelling. Travel is therapy!

What areas of medicine are you most excited to see develop?

Artificial intelligence (AI), genetic engineering, and bioprinting. The idea of growing human organs in the laboratory feels like driving a formula one car for the first time, I imagine (as a formula one fan!).

What is one advancement in your field you’d like to see in your career?

I would like to see interventional pulmonology (IP) growing within less resourced settings. Most times when I attend the international conferences I get to play with the “big toys,” i.e. robotic bronchoscopy, navigational bronchoscopy, endobronchial ultrasound, and cryobiopsy, etc.

We have no access to such services in my setting and certainly in other less resourced environments.

Yet I feel that patients from less resourced settings could also benefit from such IP advancements, too, since they help achieve higher diagnostic yield and broaden therapeutic interventions.
 

Which statement did you make up?

Skydiving! I am afraid of heights and despite this, I still did gorge swinging after a lot of peer pressure, the video of me doing this is hilarious. Oh yes! I can swim really good… haha!