Dr. Gyakobo is an Associate Professor with the Department of Internal Medicine and Therapeutics, School of Medical Sciences, University of Cape Coast. He doubles as the National Coordinator for the Pain Free Hospital Initiative Programme and supervises the training of health staff in the management of pain in a scale up across the country. He is the immediate past Medical Superintendent of Tetteh Quarshie Memorial Hospital where he established postgraduate training in Family Medicine and continues to coordinate residency training in this specialty. He was the first and immediate past National Coordinator of the Modular Residency programme in Family Medicine, Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons. Prior to these appointments, he was the Deputy Director of the Dodowa Health Research Centre where he worked sixty per cent of his time. The remaining time he split between the Greater Accra Regional Hospital, Ridge and the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons as trainer in Research Methods, Family and Palliative Medicine.
For more than half his medical practice, Dr. Gyakobo served in rural areas in Ghana as a general practitioner and later a Public Health/Family Physician. He worked with St. Dominic’s Hospital, Akwatia in rural Ghana as a Medical Officer and then a Senior Medical Officer. Mawuli held the positions of Head of Departments of Child Health, Internal Medicine and Surgery at various times. He was an “all duty” doctor with a flair for all manner of cases regardless of sex, age, organ system or acuteness of illness. Surgical and obstetric skills were a necessary competency for successful practice in the rural hospital.
Upon completion of a Masters Degree in Health Services Planning and Management, he took up the position of Programme Director, Kwaebibirem District Mutual Health Insurance Scheme to oversee the development of health insurance in the district. In 2002, he was transferred to another rural district where he held the following offices: District Director of Health Services, Akuapem South; Member, District Health Committee; Member, Board of Governors, Nsawam Government Hospital; Member, Hospital Management Board, Akuapem South Municipal Hospital. In 2009, he joined the Ghana-Michigan Charter project as the Human Resource for Health Researcher. Mawuli is a trainer and examiner in Family Medicine with the Ghana and West African Colleges of Physicians and a Palliative Care advocate and pioneer in Ghana.
Dr. Gyakobo graduated in 1992 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Human Biology from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. In 1996 and 2001, he received a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery Degree and a Master of Science Degree in Health Services Planning and Management respectively from the same University. Mawuli was awarded a Doctorate in Public Health in 2009 from the University of Ghana. He became a Member of the West African College of Physicians, Faculty of Family Medicine in 2005 and a Fellow of the same college in 2009. Mawuli pursued a post-doctoral certificate in Global Health in the University of Michigan and completed in May 2011. Mawuli holds several post-doctoral certificates in palliative medicine.
Dr. Gyakobo has since 2009 trained in Palliative Medicine at the University of Michigan and at the Institute of Palliative Medicine at San Diego Hospice. He also had an attachment in Palliative Care at the Veterans Affairs Hospital, Ann Arbor. In February 2015 he completed the African Pain Policy Fellowship (APPF) with the University of Wisconsin Carbone Centre, School of Medicine and Public Health, Pain and Policy Studies Group (PPSG) and the African Palliative Care Association (APCA). He was elected Fellow in Family Medicine, Ghana College of Physicians in 2017.
Mawuli has several peer-reviewed papers to his credit and also co-authored a chapter in the recently published “Global Surgery and Anaesthesia Manual”. He is presently working as a consultant with the UNODC on the quantification of opioid medicines and estimation of psychotropic substances and precursors in Nigeria as part of the broader programme, “response to drugs and related organised crime in Nigeria”. He is also reviewing and developing inventory and record keeping tools for controlled medicines under the same project in Nigeria.
