Tunji grew up in Nigeria and moved to England in 1992. He first came to King’s in 2000 to do the final part of his specialist training in A&E. He had joined the Royal College of Surgeons in 1997, and chose to use his skills within emergency medicine.
“I enjoyed all aspects of my training, but A&E felt like a natural choice,” says Tunji.
When he realised he was treating victims of stabbings who were not much older than his son, he became interested in educating young people about the effects of knife crime. The youngest person treated for stabbing at King’s in October 2008 was a 14-year-old girl.
“For the last six years, the trend in youngsters getting involved in violence and knife injury has been growing,” he says. “In A&E, we were patching these young people up, but as a parent it struck me, what do these young people know? What does my son know? I just didn’t get what they were thinking, and I didn’t think they knew enough about what a knife can do.”
Answering teenagers' questions
In 2003, Tunji helped the police force produce an educational DVD on the dangers of knives, but he thought young people would benefit from a more personal approach.
“I felt that interaction with a medical person would be more helpful, and the children would be able to ask any questions they wanted,” he says. “I made it known I’d be happy to talk in schools, and that’s how it started.”
The first group Tunji visited consisted of 13- to 15-year-olds. “They knew they could inflict pain with a knife, but didn’t realise that people can die from being stabbed in the leg,” says Tunji. “The life-threatening danger is hitting the big artery in the leg and bleeding to death. There can also be tendon or nerve damage that makes normal function impossible.”
The A&E department also treats victims of gun crime, who tend to be in their late teens or early 20s. Knife crime is affecting younger teens. Tunji uses pictures of knife wounds in his discussions, and he always gets teenagers to talk and ask lots of questions.
The question he is most often asked is how he got to the position he is in today. "This often opens up a discussion about motivation and self-belief," he says.
As well as educating young people, Tunji’s job involves the day-to-day management of the A&E department, teaching medical students and treating patients. “The most rewarding part of my job is the interaction with patients,” he says. “We’re in the position to transform someone who could have died into someone who is able to walk home.”
Becoming a doctor
Tunji always wanted to be a doctor. His mother and extended family raised him after his father died when Tunji was five. His uncle was in medical school at the time and inspired him.
“If you were good with maths and science, which I was, it was natural to apply that to medicine,” says Tunji. “I got my primary medical training at Obafemi Awolowo University, then came to the UK because it was the best place to get surgical qualifications.”
He studied in Hereford for 18 months then moved to Lewisham in London. Tunji was struck most by how peaceful life was. “I thought the UK was a fantastic, peaceful place. The police didn’t carry guns, which seemed strange as in Nigeria we see American films that show police carrying guns,” he says.
During this time, he met up with Mercy, a friend from his Nigerian university days, and they later married. They now have a son and two daughters.
Tackling discrimination
In the UK, Tunji was suddenly part of the minority ethnic community. “I was the only black man on the streets of Hereford,” he says. He was made to feel welcome and has not experienced racism.
“From that point of view, I’m fairly fortunate,” he says. “I cannot pretend there aren’t issues around racial discrimination. Some are overt, some are less so. But I think with education and public awareness, that is changing. People will not generally mind each other because of the colour of their skin.
"The overt, fairly vocal ways of expressing racial discrimination come from a minority.”
He believes self-confidence is an important factor in conquering any kind of discrimination. “If a person has self-esteem and works to be the best they can be, then they’re less likely to get irritated or offended by comments about the colour of their skin. If I meet someone who feels they have been victimised, I try to help them realise that they’re better than they’ve been made to feel.”
Although A&E keeps him very busy, Tunji prioritises any requests from schools for a talk about knives. “Education is so important,” he says. “My hope for the future is a society where we are all at one, with no unnecessary violence.”
