Kenya I. Sekoni Etim, MS, MD, FAAFP

Kenya I. Sekoni Etim, MS, MD, FAAFP, is a board-certified family medicine physician who sees patients of all ages at UT Health East Texas Physicians in Jacksonville. “I chose family medicine to teach patients how to break unhealthy family habits. Diabetes, hypertension, colon cancer, cardiovascular disease and a host of other conditions can go back generations in families. They can sometimes be prevented with education and patience.”

Teaching the next generation of physicians is particularly important to Dr. Etim. She has served as an assistant professor for Michigan State University College of Human Medicine and will now teach for The University of Texas at Tyler School of Medicine. Abroad, she holds the status of adjunct professor for Kenyatta University School of Medicine. “I thoroughly enjoy teaching medical students how to transform their science knowledge to problem differentials. I teach them to combine the patient story with the physical exam to minimize ordering tests that increase patient costs.”

Dr. Etim believes that healthy people make healthy communities. Thus, community service is the thread that ties her heart to the communities she works in. She has served Jacksonville since 2011 by being a board member of the Fred Douglass Community Development Coalition. That same year she was inducted as a board member for Pan African Christian Exchange ministries in the country of Kenya. Her mission there is to advise and teach at the onsite clinic.

“I am blessed to be a blessing,” Dr. Etim said.

Dr. Etim is employed as a clinical faculty physician at The University of Texas at Tyler Health Science Center under the UT Tyler School of Medicine.