Prof Emmanuel Oladipo Otolorin holds a 1st Class BSc degree in Human Anatomy in 1969 and an MB.BS degree in 1972 with distinction in physiology. Thereafter, he did his residency in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University College Hospital, Ibadan and the Newcastle General Hospital in the United Kingdom. He holds three postgraduate degrees in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, namely Fellowship of the National Postgraduate Medical College (FMCOG) in Nigeria, Fellowship of the West African College of Surgeons (FWACS), Membership and later Fellowship of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (FRCOG) in the United Kingdom. He also holds a Fellowship of the International College of Surgeons (FICS).
He was appointed a Lecturer/Consultant in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, in 1981 and rose to the position of Professor in 1988. He was also a one-time Chief Consultant Obstetrician/Gynaecologist at Taif Maternity Hospital in Saudi Arabia and Pioneer Medical Director of the Federal Medical Centre, Abeokuta in Ogun State. He joined Jhpiego Corporation, an affiliate of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA in January, 2000. Thereafter, he became the pioneer Reproductive Health Advisor at the Regional Centre for Quality of Health Care in Uganda from 2000-2002 and HIV/AIDS Advisor at the Jhpiego Head Office in Baltimore, USA from 2002-2004. He was deployed as a Regional HIV/AIDS Advisor in Lusaka, Zambia, in 2005 and returned to Nigeria in January 2006 to establish a Jhpiego Nigeria office. Prof Otolorin has over 80 academic publications in his chosen field of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Reproductive Health.
Over the last 11 years, he has managed numerous international programs in Nigeria all focused on reducing the abysmally high maternal and newborn mortality in the country. Stepping out of the Ivory Tower in Ibadan into the real world in Northern Nigeria soon revealed to him how ignorance, poverty and the country's poor health systems were conspiring to kill pregnant women in the act of childbearing. Knowing that the major causes of such mortality were largely preventable through access to low cost solutions, he has been a passionate advocate for increasing access of all pregnant women to these high impact interventions that aim to eliminate preventable causes of maternal mortality. In view of the prevalent shortage of human resources for health in Nigeria, he has also been an advocate for task shifting in the health sector; training nurse-midwives and community health extension workers (CHEWs) to provide life-saving emergency obstetric and newborn care services in the absence of doctors. Through these programs, many women and babies' lives have been saved while many unwanted and unplanned pregnancies have been prevented through the use of family planning services. In addition, he has focused on improving the quality of services provided to these women so that their overall experience of pregnancy, labour and childbirth will be a pleasant and memorable one.
Prof Otolorin also provided leadership for a 5-year ExxonMobil funded project in Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria that demonstrated the benefits of community directed interventions for the prevention and control of malaria in pregnancy. Through these projects, communities were encouraged and empowered to take care of their own health.
Prof Otolorin recently stepped down as the Country Director of Jhpiego in Abuja, Nigeria and Chief of Party of the Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP) currently being implemented in Ebonyi and Kogi States.
However, he has since taken up the Senior Regional Programmatic and Technical Advisor position in a new project (Transforming Intermittent Preventive Therapy for Optimal Pregnancy) aimed at eliminating the adverse consequences of malaria in pregnancy in four countries, namely, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Madagascar, Mozambique and Nigeria.
Prof Otolorin was until recently the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Association for Reproductive and Family Health and also recently completed his tenure as the Chairman of the Board of Management of the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital (OOUTH) in Shagamu, Nigeria. He is also the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Olujimi Oladipo Akinkugbe (OOA) Private Ward at the Federal Medical Centre, Abeokuta, Nigeria; Member of the Board of Management of the Society for Quality in Healthcare in Nigeria (SQHN) and Member of the Advisory Board of the AIDS Prevention Initiative in Nigeria (APIN).
Prof Otolorin is happily married to Dr Lilian Adekemi Otolorin, retired Chief Consultant Radiologist and Permanent Secretary Oyo State. They are blessed with children and grandchildren.
