Njira L Lugogo, MD
Clinical Professor of Medicine
Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care Medicine
University of Michigan
Do you think Dr. Lugogo:
- Speaks five languages fluently?
- Considered pursuing a career in culinary arts to become a chef?
- Was once told she did not have the ability to operate a cash register and was, thus, hired to bag groceries?
Give us your “elevator pitch biography.
My passion for medicine started at a young age when I would run up to my siblings who had sustained playground injuries and “doctor” them. I was always handy with band-aids and ace wraps. For a brief moment I contemplated becoming a chef and ironically barely cook now. I grew up in Kenya and attended college at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA ,where I received a BSC in Human Nutrition and Foods. There are three generations of Virginia Tech Hokies in my family and both my husband and I have Bachelor’s Degrees from Virginia Tech. My fondness for Blacksburg continues to be an important part of my life.
After college, I worked for one year in a research lab and then matriculated at the VCU School of Medicine in Richmond VA. During my years in medical school, I organized yearly medical missions to rural areas on the coast of Kenya. These missions highlighted the need for access to medical care and further enhanced my passion and commitment to medicine. Following graduation I completed Internal Medicine residency at Wake Forest University Medical Center and thereafter a Pulmonary, Critical Care Fellowship at Duke University. I became interested in asthma care and research as a fellow when I worked with Dr. Monica Kraft. Clinical research was a way to be part of the solution and to never have to tell a patient that I had no solution to their problems. Severe asthma patients became my passion in fellowship, and I worked hard to develop the skills needed to manage this complex patient population. I developed my skills as a clinical trialist and began to explore opportunities to make clinical research a part of my academic career.
After fellowship I served as an Instructor in Medicine in the Pulmonary Division at Duke. While at Duke I was promoted to Assistant Professor, served as the Medical Director of the Duke Asthma Allergy and Airways Center and Pulmonary Clinical Research Unit. In 2017, I moved to the University of Michigan to serve as a Clinical Associate Professor in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and I am the Michigan Medicine Asthma Program Director. I participate in multiple asthma clinical trials and I am the PI of the Michigan site for the NHLBI PrecISE network, a precision medicine network focused on severe and exacerbating asthma. I am currently a Clinical Professor of Medicine, Medical Director of both the Michigan Clinical Research Unit and a statewide quality improvement initiative INHALE (Inspiring Health Advances in Lung Care). I remain passionate and committed to asthma care, specifically the management of severe asthma and run a busy clinical practice managing asthma of all severities.
What would you tell yourself as an Early Career Professional?
Find your passion and focus on it in all facets of your work. Honing in on what you want to do and narrowing the funnel early on helps to increase your chances of being successful and productive. Learn to select the things that converge with your goals and gracefully decline those that distract from your long-term focus. Avail yourself of leadership opportunities and programs that help you to learn how to lead and manage highly effective teams. Understand institutional priorities and align your efforts with these priorities.
If you weren’t in medicine, and were in a different industry altogether, what would you be?
If I weren’t in medicine I would gravitate to other science fields and would likely have focused my energy on biomedical discovery and research or public health. I am driven by a desire to solve problems and develop solutions that improve the lives of others. I am currently embarking on a statewide quality improvement project that is bringing me great joy. The ability to impact others’ lives in a positive way gives my life meaning and purpose.
What is your favorite way to spend a day off?
I love to take long walks, spending time with my children and sitting outside on warm days reading fictional novels and mysteries.
What areas of medicine are you most excited to see develop?
I am excited about the possibility of developing biomarkers that enhance our ability to risk-stratify patients and select therapies that are driven by each individual’s biology. In addition, I am excited about the advent of technologies that can improve delivery of medications to the lungs such as the possibility of using inhaled biologics, small molecules that target inflammatory pathways in novel ways and disease-modifying therapeutics that can switch off dysregulated immune responses.
What is one advancement in your field you’d like to see in your career?
I am excited about the prospect of advancing the discussions about remission in asthma care. We currently have highly effective therapies but getting those therapies to patients has been an ongoing challenge. In addition, our approach to managing asthma has been focused on achieving control but we need a paradigm shift in our thinking. Identifying high risk patients earlier and employing aggressive interventions to prevent deterioration. Moving towards risk prediction, early intervention and risk mitigation in a precision guided manner would push the envelope in asthma care and improve the chances of achieving optimal outcomes for all patients with asthma.
Which statement did you make up?
I speak five languages fluently.
