Dr. Taiwo Durowade ’09 has become a successful entrepreneur in the medical field not only because of her personal excellence, but also because she knows when to ask for help.
“You’re starting from, ‘I’m already good at this. Now I need to scale up this part of my skills with some help from some experienced people,’” she said.
Durowade plans to share this advice and much more with Redbirds during her keynote talk during the annual Charles Morris STEM Social. The event, which will be from 6:30-8 p.m. Thursday, November 10, 2022, in the Jaime Escalante Conference Room, Vrooman 103, will also feature the announcement of the Charles Morris STEM Scholarship and Dr. Fred Gletten Memorial Scholarship recipients.
Durowade is a board-certified obstetrician gynecologist who has been practicing in south suburban Chicago for the past five years. In January 2022 she started her own practice, Dardur Gynecology.
Durowade is originally from Nigeria and moved with her family to Dolton in 2004. While in high school, Durowade started the process of looking at colleges to begin her path toward a career in healthcare and was accepted to Illinois State.
When Durowade first came to Illinois State, she was razor-focused on her studies. Eventually, Durowade started to branch out and become more involved on campus. She was a member of the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (now called the STEM Alliance) throughout her time at Illinois State and joined the African Student Organization as well.
She also participated in a campus mentoring program where she was able to meet other freshmen and work with her mentor throughout her Illinois State journey Dr. Lisa Sczcepura.
“She was the one who helped me organize my schedule for my four years,” Durowade said. “And so just having that guidance shaped my experience.”
After graduating from Illinois State, Durowade attended the University of Illinois College of Medicine, followed by a residency in obstetrics and gynecology in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Becoming an OB-GYN was not her original plan, but it revealed itself as a field she could excel in during her studies.
“I was looking for something that was both surgical, but not entirely surgical, and still had some form of patient interaction that went beyond just operating and leaving,” she said. “I had reservations about OB-GYN. So, I asked questions, I went to people in the field to raise my questions, and they gave me answers that assured me that I could find my niche.”
She returned to Chicago after her residency to be closer to her family and to work directly with patients from the community. Durowade said she started to think about creating her own practice shortly after the one she was working for disbanded in 2021. She saw this as a unique opportunity to do something outside of the corporate healthcare system to help patients more directly.
“I just felt restricted and limited. I wanted to experience the length and breadth of gynecology, but I didn’t have room to do that,” she said.
Durowade reached out to professionals regarding how to create a business plan, obtain a business loan, and grow her practice. Part of that growth strategy has involved using social media. Earlier this year, she started a YouTube Channel called “Uncommon Knowledge,” where she answers questions that she believes all her patients should know answers to, but often finds they have little to no knowledge of when they see her for care.
The early videos were helpful in getting the word out about her practice and educating her patients, but she wants to take it to the next level. As always, Durowade is taking the initiative by reaching out to experts in the social media field to help her expand her reach.
“I actually just recently got a coach on how to do YouTube videos in a way that would be engaging,” she said. “We have a new batch of videos coming out with a new template that I’m excited about.”
Durowade is looking forward to returning to Illinois State to talk about her career path with Redbirds who are in the initial stages of their journey in STEM.
“What I really want to emphasize is being adaptable, because I had to change my mindset through every stage of this,” she said. “I want to emphasize being adaptable and how important mentorship is, how mentorship has helped me succeed in situations where I could have dropped the ball, I could have failed. I’m going to focus on my journey, the mistakes I’ve made, and how I rectified them.”
