HARLINGEN — As a medical student in his native Nigeria and then Pennsylvania, Dr. Toltaku Thomas early on became fascinated by the way human organs interact with each other.
He was especially interested in the kidney, which he describes as “the center of a lot of crisscrossing in the human body.”
“After my residency training, I was very much interested in kidney disease, and I spent some time in that,” said Thomas, nephrologist at the Veterans Affairs Texas Valley Coastal Bend Health Care System.
Thomas has been with the VA in Harlingen since November of last year and is enjoying his new post.
“I like the VA,” said Thomas, 45. “I have enough time to see the patients, to be able to thoroughly evaluate them and treat them. I can do follow-ups. I have enough time to sit down and fully evaluate and properly manage cases, and so I like it.”
He began his journey to the Valley in Nigeria where he earned his medical degree from the University of Maiduguri College of Medical Sciences in 2001. He first visited Philadelphia in 2004 — also his first trip to the United States — and then continued his studies there in 2007.
“After my fellowship I worked for the U.S. Army and I was very heavily involved in the COVID crisis,” he said. “I was one of the task force members. And after that assignment I got an offer to join the Valley Coastal Bend as the nephrologist.”
There’s obviously a striking difference between Nigeria in West Africa to Harlingen in South Texas on the Mexican border.
Nigeria, on the Gulf of Guinea, is a land of striking beauty with waterfalls, dense rainforests and savanna. More than 250 ethnic groups speak a diversity of languages and enjoy such foods as jollof rice, pounded yams and pepper soup.
The Valley is flat, subtropical terrain where Hispanic and Anglo populations have lived for generations and built a very different history and culture.
And between those two locations is Philadelphia in the Northeast United States.
“Coming to the Valley from a big city, it’s a bit small, it’s a bit quiet,” he said. “On the good side it’s slow as opposed to the high pace of the northeast. The people here have been very nice. The cost of living is average.”
