CANADA: Nigerian Kika, wins $15,000 medical body’s 150th anniversary bursary

A CANADA-based Nigerian, Kika Otiono, has won this year’s Canadian Medical Association’s $15,000 bursary award.

Kika’s father, Professor Nduka Otiono in a Facebook post, described the award as heart-warming, given the financial challenges medical students face in colleges.

The statement reads in part: “It’s no news that med school is financially challenging. And so, every windfall, especially in this dreary season of the pandemic, is not only a blessing, but goes a long way to reducing post-graduation student loan.”

“How more grateful could one be to the Almighty who has done it again, with this unexpected well-earned Christmas gift Kika has won for herself,” the elated father added.

Established in 2017 by the Canadian Medical Association Foundation in commemoration of the CMA’s 150th anniversary, the bursary is awarded to its students enrolled in the Michael G Degroote School of Medicine of McMaster University.

The award is given to students who demonstrate the values of medical professionalism, including: honesty and integrity, respect, responsibility and accountability, commitment to self-improvement and collaboration.

Poet and Literary scholar, Nduka Otiono, Kika’s father, lectures at the Institute of African Studies, Carleton University in Canada.

A former staff of The Guardian newspaper and later literary editor with the defunct Post Express newspaper, Otiono is also on the Editorial Advisory Board of Naija Times.