Esayas Okubamichael, MD, grew up in Ethiopia and completed medical school at Gondar College of Medical Sciences. Ethiopia was home until the 1998-2000 Eritrean-Ethiopian border war, which led to the mass expulsion of people of Eritrean descent in the country. He left Ethiopia and went to Belgium where he continued his studies before starting an international career in public health. He worked with Doctors Without Borders in countries including Cambodia, Russia and South Africa, combatting global public health issues like malaria, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, drug-resistant tuberculosis, and other infectious diseases.

In 2010, Dr. Okubamichael permanently settled in the U.S., following his wife – Hanna Belay – who was pursuing graduate studies in nursing (she is currently an assistant professor of nursing at St. Cloud State University). They moved to Minnesota from Texas for his residency at the University of Minnesota and he joined CentraCare as a hospitalist in 2018.

His life experiences have given him an appreciation for the challenges facing people today.

“The last two years have been a challenging time,” he said. “This is a new pandemic with so many unknowns. It has huge impact emotionally, socially, and economically. I worry about my family, friends, the community as a whole, my country of origin Eritrea, and the world.”

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Esayas Okubamichael, MD

Dr. Okubamichael joined CentraCare as a hospitalist in 2018.

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Standing together

Dr. Okubamichael believes that by standing together and supporting each other, we can address the challenges we face.

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Inspiration

Dr. Okubamichael draws energy and inspiration from helping patients.

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Connection

Dr. Okubamichael cherishes the special connection with people that comes from caring for them.

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Working together

Already equipped with full PPE, Dr. Okubamichael lends a hand removing food from a patient’s room.

“Our community has a significant number of elderly people with underlying medical issues,” he adds. “It can be heart issues, lung problems, diabetes, kidney problems or dialysis. These people are at high risk of complications from COVID. I have many patients who are immunocompromised. You put them on treatment, you follow them, and despite that – because of their age and underlying conditions – you don’t always see improvement. That has been the challenging part. When you take care of another human being, you connect and it really can affect you emotionally.”

Through it all, he hopes we learn from each other.

“In the United States, the pandemic hit hard in New York in the beginning,” he said. “So we learned from them to get better prepared. When it comes to clinically treating patients, you learn from others’ experience – what they did right and what they learned along the way – and you improve your quality of patient care. That improves the outcome of your care. So I share my experiences with people, especially physicians in Ethiopia, and discuss how we do things here and how they do things there.”

“The one thing that gives me hope is innovation,” he said. “Getting a vaccine in a short time was the biggest achievement during this pandemic. So, we need to continue working on that and I wish for people to get vaccinated. And at the same time, we must use data and watch what is happening because we shouldn’t relax – we need to continue the momentum.”