From Operating Room to Startup: Obinwanne Ugwonali, MD ’99, Is Expanding Access to Care

Obinwanne Ugwonali, MD ’99, wears multiple demanding hats … those of orthopaedic surgeon, entrepreneur, and mentor. “I feel extremely fortunate that I’m able to do all these things,” he says.

Ugwonali specializes in shoulder, elbow, and hand surgery in the oldest orthopaedic group in the Southeast, Peachtree Orthopedics of Greater Atlanta, a private practice he joined 20 years ago. There he has earned a “Top Doctor” ranking 10 years in a row by both Castle Connolly and Atlanta Magazine. He also is president and co-founder of MedTrans Go, a startup that connects health care providers to reliable transportation and interpretation services for their patients.

His deep understanding of and sensitivity to multicultural populations and their needs has been central to his success.

A challenge that Ugwonali overcame early in life, undoubtedly with aplomb, was moving with his family from Nigeria, his birthplace, to the United States at age nine. Here he excelled at Phillips Academy Andover, Stanford University, and Yale School of Medicine (YSM), and subsequently at Columbia University and Harvard, where he completed his training.

Ugwonali notes that his father, who worked for Nigeria’s Ministry of Health, dreamed of going to medical school. He earned a PhD instead after immigrating to the U.S. Ugwonali says, “Going to medical school was a way for me to fulfill his dreams of becoming a doctor and also my dreams of becoming a doctor. I was able to get that accomplished for our family.”

YSM was the place for Ugwonali. “It was the only medical school that I considered, and I was fortunate to have been accepted. I loved every minute I spent in New Haven. We had such an incredible class. We loved to learn and to help each other; we worked together and achieved incredible things. It was a very collaborative environment, nothing like what I imagined medical school to be.”

One of Ugwonali’s fondest memories of his time at YSM was working on his MD thesis project. The research he pursued focused on the high incidence of twin pregnancies in Nigeria, where his family has roots. Learning that the Yoruba people of western Nigeria had the highest incidence of twin pregnancies in the world, he decided to investigate.

“I went to Nigeria and then Brazil, funded by a YSM research grant, and did an epigenetic study. My research team and I found out that a combination of factors led to the twinning phenomenon: the food the people ate, specifically the yams, which had high levels of phytoestrogens, and probably genetics. These factors resulted in the Yoruba women in Nigeria ovulating more eggs than normal and thus having higher rates of twin pregnancy.” Ugwonali notes that nearly every family in the Yoruba population of western Nigeria has a set of twins.

In Bahia, Brazil, where many of the enslaved Yoruba people were transported during the trans-Atlantic slave trade, he did similar research. Finally, at Yale, he conducted lab studies with rats that he fed yams and assessed the yams’ effect on the rats’ reproductive cycles.

His research, which was published, earned him the medical research award at graduation.

Although Ugwonali loved Ob/Gyn and had arrived at YSM thinking he would be a cardiologist, orthopaedics had the greatest appeal. “I clicked with the doctors and the residents, and I realized that orthopaedics fit my personality. The people who went into orthopaedics were generally former athletes, and I had been an athlete. Also, I loved that you would identify an injury, fix it, get the patient healthy, and move on.”

Ugwonali finds that the greatest challenge in orthopaedics private practice today is balancing the business of being a doctor with the science and the medical service. He cites payers’ use of artificial intelligence (AI) to review doctors’ notes and bills to find reasons to deny payment as a new stressor. He says, “Being a physician is already stressful, and this additional stress created by payers more concerned about shareholder profits than patient care is creating an environment where physicians are starting to rethink their approach to medicine.”

He adds, “I think it’s extremely important for doctors to be involved in health care business decision making and to be an integral part of figuring out how we navigate this new system, especially when it involves AI. I believe that AI will be a positive force in medicine.”

However, he cautions that AI systems also sometimes hallucinate—make up things—so they should be monitored, because “ultimately, human beings have the ultimate intelligence and the most effective ability to communicate with other human beings.”

A significant problem that Ugwonali encountered in his medical practice inspired him to venture into entrepreneurship in 2018. The problem was two back-to-back last-minute surgery cancellations by patients due to a ride cancellation, in one case, and a Spanish interpreter who did not show up, in the other.

“We ended up losing the opportunity to do the surgeries, which was costly for my practice, and more importantly, the patients were in pain and weren’t able to have the surgery on the day that they were prepared to have it.”

Ugwonali and his team looked deeper into the problem of surgery cancellations and no-shows. They found it was a $150 billion-a-year problem in the U.S. “We decided it would be neat to have a platform where you have medically trained transporters and certified interpreters, so if someone were to run into a similar problem, they could easily get on a computer or pull up their app and order the service providers needed.”

Partnering with a handful of co-founders, Ugwonali launched MedTrans Go to provide this very solution—aimed at addressing the root causes of medical appointment cancellations. The Atlanta-based startup now serves customers in more than 20 states, has assisted over 12,000 patients, and has provided 40,000 transportations. MedTrans Go offers its platform mainly to hospitals and surgical centers, where it has been especially helpful in improving access to care for patients in underserved communities.

Says Ugwonali, “It’s been financially rewarding for the medical facilities and rewarding for the patients that need care.”

The company has recently launched an exciting new billing platform that will further expand its reach and facilitate transportation cost savings by enabling customers to use health insurance and health savings account (HSA) and flexible spending account (FSA) funds to pay for their transportation.

Ugwonali felt well prepared for the leap into entrepreneurship. “I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit,” says this former economics major. In college, he sold personal safety alarms to women on campus. Later, Ugwonali co-founded a technology investment fund that backed minority entrepreneurs, further kindling his interest in startups, and at Peachtree, leadership positions helped to teach him the business of health care. Moreover, he had an astute business partner by his side, his wife, Dana Weeks.

Ugwonali believes in giving back. He is a proud mentor to future orthopaedic surgeons and, recognizing the need to promote psychological health in Nigeria, is a supporter of Yale Global Mental Health Program’s HAPPINESS Project there.

He also recently joined YSM’s Founders Pledge program, which brings together a community of philanthropically inclined entrepreneurs. “I jumped at the opportunity to join Founders Pledge. This was an opportunity not only to meet and potentially collaborate with fellow entrepreneurs, but also to give back to peers and perhaps to students who may be thinking about being involved in entrepreneurial pursuits.”

What has been Ugwonali’s most important accomplishment? With his priorities well placed, he says, “Marrying my wife. She has been by my side and together we have built an incredible family. The second is my children … amazing kids. We’re really blessed.”