Emmanuel Amey Ojara

Emmanuel Amey Ojara (1944 to 1987) was a Ugandan-born medical doctor, surgeon and oncologist who worked in East Africa. He was born at Layibi Village near Gulu in northern Uganda, studied at Makerere University School of Medicine in Kampala, and took his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degree in 1971, followed by a Master of Medicine in Surgery in 1976. He interned at Mulago Hospital, served as a medical officer for the Uganda Ministry of Health, and taught at Makerere as assistant lecturer and then lecturer. In 1977, during the violent years of Idi Amin's rule, he and his family fled to Kenya, where he became a lecturer at the University of Nairobi School of Medicine and a registrar at Kenyatta National Hospital. By the time of his early death at 43 he was a senior lecturer and had begun research toward a cure for cancer, with his interest centred on intestinal cancer.