Pegasus Medical Director Featured in Gadsden Style Magazine
DR. DJIBY DIOP WANTED TO study medicine from the time he was a young boy in Africa. Some 50 years later, he has fulfilled that dream.
Diop, 57, is medical director at Gadsden Regional Medical Center. He is making a difference, whether it is touching the lives of his patients or the lives of the team he says is critical in caring for patients.
"Our mission is to bring excellence in all aspects of health care," he says. "I am one of those people who believes in teamwork."
Diop was born in Senegal, a small country on the western coast of Africa.
"Medicine was always something that fascinated me, because I came from a country where people have a lot of illness," he says. "I knew I wanted to be able to be in a position to be able to make a difference. I knew medicine was what I wanted to do."
Diop knew that no other country surpassed the United States in the medical field, so he came here to study medicine.
But first, he had to learn English.
"It was just sounds," he says, recalling his early days as a teenager.
"My notebook would be empty."
But Diop was quick to learn English and graduated from high school in Maryland as a member of the National Honor Society. He obtained dual college degrees and found himself at an Ivy League school.
"I didn't know the difference in an Ivy League school," he says. "I just knew I wanted to be affiliated with the best schools."
He went to the Brown University School of Medicine and then to the Harvard School of Public Health.
He first worked with a public health agency to help implement an AIDS-related health project with African countries.
"That was my way of giving back to Africa," he says.
He went into two specialty fields, internal medicine and emergency medicine.
He worked at Massachusetts General Hospital as the attending physician in the emergency department.
"I was teaching residents and young physicians," he says.
Through the years, he obtained all types of training, received many awards and recognitions and advanced through his field at jobs across the country.
He came to Gadsden in 2009 with specific goals.
Not only is caring for his patients a priority, so is providing them with excellent customer service and an overall good experience.
To do that, Diop believes strongly that the best care comes from a successful alliance with the medical staff and hospital.
"There are many different departments and many different people that must work together in concert to achieve this," he says. "A physician alone cannot do it."
Diop says he has high standards and demands the same from everyone on the team.
"I don't ask of anyone anything I won't do myself," he says.
Diop says in more than 30 years in the medical profession, the changes in technology are one of the biggest differences he has seen.
With some current technology, some blood test results are available within two minutes at the patient's bedside.
"We can expedite care, and we are very proud of that."
I am one of those people who believes in teamwork.