Spotlight: Dr. Michael Mwachiro, Kovitz Visiting Professor

On February 24^th, 2026, the Department of Surgery welcomed Dr. Michael Mwachiro as the Kovitz Visiting Professor. Dr. Mwachiro is the President of the Surgical Society of Kenya and Chair of the Education and Research committee for the College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa (COSECSA). The Louis & Dorothy Kovitz Visiting Professorship Lecture recognizes exceptional physicians from within and outside the United States and invites them to Stanford to speak about their work. His talk, “Leveraging Global Collaborations and Innovation for Research, Training and Mentorship in Surgery,” focused on his perspective on surgical education and ways to develop and promote educational efforts.

Prior to and following his lecture, he joined the department for a two-week observership with a special emphasis on Stanford’s advanced endoscopy program. He noted that the experience provided valuable insights into the surgery culture and best practices in the United States. We caught up with him during his visit to talk about his experience and what he hoped to share with the Stanford community.

The power of connection

My goal was to emphasize the power of connectivity.  I started with the factors that shaped my own research journey and how I got into global health and global surgery. I also shared some of the problems in our part of the world and how the answers came through connectivity and collaboration. The second part of the talk was focused on surgical education. I highlighted the collaborative work that has been done by COSECSA and Stanford such as the ENTRUST platform and mentorship programs like SASH. In the third part, I talked about the importance of mentorship and highlighted to the audience that we all succeeded in entering a surgical career because we had mentors who showed us the way.

The connections we established with Stanford Surgery in the last decade were very helpful to us, and we truly appreciate the initial initiatives that later became the backbone of this partnership, such as Dr. Cara Liebert’s dedication to supporting us. She and Dr. Dana Lin have been regularly coming to support COSECSA through laparoscopy courses, as well as the support from Dr. Weiser, Dr. Wren and making the time to attend and participate in the COSECSA exams.

These aspects of connectivity have helped us accelerate the work that we’ve been doing in and out of our region. We value those collaborations and appreciate how they impact research, education and mentorship. Everything that we have done so far in COSECSA and the research work that we’ve been doing wouldn’t have been possible without forming these connections and Stanford’s active involvement in the collaborative projects.

Meeting with faculty

In my meeting with Dr. Hawn, we focused on areas of ongoing collaboration, current partnerships that are moving forward, and additional fields that we can start working on together.

It was an opportunity for me to reflect on the journey that COSECSA has had in surgical education and the impact of networks we have formed with Stanford Surgery. We also visited the growth of laparoscopic and robotic surgery in the US and the opportunities that are available to us in that area to improve the quality of laparoscopy and surgical care in our region.

I also had meetings with educators with the Digestive Health Center, including spending quite a bit of my time here shadowing Dr. Shai Friedland on the medical side and Dr. Micaela Esquivel on the surgical side. The highlight of that was being able to learn about what is being done in the US in terms of surgical and endoscopic advancements, patient care, and decision-making pathways. My hosts shared ideas about the training opportunities that COSECSA has in GI endoscopy and laparoscopy training, especially in minimally invasive surgery (MIS) and how we can leverage that for ongoing educational initiatives. We were able to identify potential starting points. It was eye-opening for me to see how innovation is being applied here at Stanford.

I met with Drs. Cara Liebert and Dana Lin several times on the educational side. We talked about surgical education and areas of mutual interest, especially ENTRUST and how impactful it has been to support COSECSA with the exams and now expanding to resident education and assessment.

I also met the trainees and had a really good time with the residents. I watched them work on the simulator and also spoke with medical students. They asked me about global surgery and what I do in Africa. I visited The Goodman Center and think it’s an excellent resource for the surgery residents where they can go and use the endoscopic and laparoscopic simulators for training. I was happy that I was able to participate in one of the sessions with them, so it’s also very useful for guests like me to come and watch them do their work.

It was so good to spend some time with Dr. David Spain on my last day at Stanford. We discussed many things, but my highlight was the means to develop more mentorships and training, the evolution of surgery over the years from how it was 10 years ago, and what the future might look like.

During my time in California, I also went to the ACGME meetings in San Diego in late February, which was a very good venue to connect with all those who are coming together to see some of the clinical competency committee work that Stanford has been doing, and how they are showing it to the rest of the United States surgeons and physicians. My meetings at Stanford Surgery had different flavors and have collectively helped me learn a lot about surgical education in the United States with some good takeaways to augment what we are currently doing through COSECSA.  

Promoting surgical education in Kenya and the COSECSA region

COSECSA is grateful to Stanford faculty who regularly come for the exams; we extend the invitation to Stanford faculty members to come and support us with the exams every year, whether virtually or in person. There is a great program on renal transplant in Zambia that is supported by Dr Tom Pham. We also have excellent support in research training through scholar and mentorship programs such as SASH. 

ENTRUST remains one of the biggest collaborative success stories. It is a rich resource and serves as a live demonstration for how we can incorporate innovation and modern AI applications into our surgical education system. ENTRUST was initially introduced in COSECSA as a virtual tool for exams. We opened a practice station where the assessment applicants can answer the questions on ENTRUST as they prepare for the Membership Level Exam. After that we used ENTRUST questions in half of the exam while standard format questions formed the other half. The implementation of ENTRUST is gradually expanding, and now it’s embedded in the online learning portion of the curriculum. Utilizing ENTRUST in the membership exams was a great success, and now we’re thinking how to leverage this for the senior trainees at the fellowship level. That effort is led by Drs. Liebert and Lin in collaboration with the COSECSA leadership, including Prof. Abebe Bekele, Dr. Andrea Parker, Dr. Seno Saruni and others.

COSECSA members teach in diverse geographic locations, and we are present at more than 140 institutions in the 19 member countries. Digital learning options, including ENTRUST, are some of the ways to connect all these sites digitally in real time. ENTRUST is a fantastic example of the power of innovation, collaboration and how that impacts a surgical trainee.

Observing Advanced Endoscopy

I watched Dr. Esquivel do robotic procedures as well as interventional endoscopic cases. It was exciting to see advanced technology and innovation being applied in daily surgical cases. I also watched a variety of endoscopy cases, such as endoscopic suturing, and motility related studies. I even had the pleasure of observing advanced endoscopy cases with Dr. Joo Ha Hwang, one of the world experts in third space endoscopy and energy settings.

I was keen to watch the patient flow process and identified areas of differences and similarities from what we do, especially those related to patient movement and patient treatment pathways, the preparation processes, and the post-op processes. All this will help us as we build endoscopy training in our region and is valuable to COSECSA as we develop our upper GI, surgical endoscopy curriculum, and the colorectal surgery fellowship. I personally gained substantial knowledge during the visit, and I’m especially appreciative of Dr. Hawn and the Department of Surgery for facilitating this opportunity.

Final words

I would like to sincerely thank all those involved in making the visit such a memorable and enriching experience. The logistics throughout the visit were efficient and seamlessly handled. I would also like to extend gratitude to Mohammed, Robin, Dr. Liebert, and others for their outstanding organization of logistics, generous hospitality, and making arrangement that granted me a chance to engage with the Goodman Center for Surgical Education and Stanford's advanced training resources. Meeting esteemed colleagues at Stanford Surgery made the three-week stay exceptionally rewarding. I would like to thank Dr. Liebert and team for the exceptional hospitality, including meeting me at the airport and her commitment to the little details including providing daily transportation from the hotel to the hospital. Last but not least, I would like to formally thank Dr. Tom Weiser and Dr. Mary Hawn for the invitation and for the warm welcome that I received.