Dr. Isaac Adembesa is the head of the Department of Anaesthesia and Critical Care at KUTRRH. He is registered by the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council as a cardiothoracic anesthesiologist. He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in medicine and surgery from Moi University in 2008 and then proceeded for a 1 year internship at the then Mbagathi District hospital.
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After internship, he joined Aga Khan hospital Kisumu as a senior house officer where he worked in the accident and emergency and the intensive care unit. This is where he developed an interest in anaesthesiology and proceeded to join the Aga Khan university hospital Nairobi for a 4 year residency in anaesthesiology.
After graduating with a master’s degree in anaesthesiology from the Aga Khan University, he was employed at the Karen hospital as a hospital anaesthesiologist in 2016. It is at the Karen hospital that he was exposed to a lot of cardiac pathologies both in theatre, cathlab and in the critical care unit.
Due to his desire and passion to be an expert in cardiovascular diseases, he joined University of Cape Town’s Department of Anaesthesia and Perioperative medicine in 2017 for a 1- year fellowship in both adult and paediatric cardiothoracic anaesthesia fellowship.
He was based at both Groote Schuur hospital and Red Cross War Memorial Children’s hospital. During his fellowship, he was exposed to perioperative care of children and adults undergoing cardiac, vascular, and thoracic surgeries, all ranges of Cath lab procedures including electrophysiology studies, cardiac critical care, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) as well as heart transplants and mechanical cardiac devices such LVADS, intra-aortic balloon pump.
He is also proficient in both transthoracic echocardiography and transesophageal echocardiography and has passed the British Society of Echocardiography Transesophageal Echo Accreditation exam.
Dr. Adembesa is also involved in research and has numerous articles. He is currently involved in collaborative research with various institutions such as KEMRI. He is also an active participant in both local and international conferences. He is a trainer and coordinator for FATE (Focused assessment with Transthoracic Echocardiography), a course aimed at training non-cardiologists on how to undertake screening bedside echocardiograms.
He is also a trainer for the BASIC course (Basic Assessment and Support in Intensive Care), a course aimed at training medical practitioners working in ICU under the Critical Care Society of Kenya.
He is an active member of the Kenya Society of Anaesthesiologists, Critical Care Society of Kenya, British Society of Echocardiography, Cardiothoracic Society of South Africa, and European Society of Cardiothoracic Anaesthesiologists and Intensive Care. He served the Critical Care Society of Kenya for 4 years as the treasurer until 2021.