Brampton doctor named one of 50 most influential Canadians

Brampton-raised Physician Chika Stacy Oriuwa has been named as one of the country’s 50 most influential people.

Oriuwa came in 37th on the 2022 Maclean’s Power List, which is a ranking of the 50 influential Canadians.

The daughter of Nigerian immigrants who grew up in Brampton, Oriuwa is a psychiatry resident at the University of Toronto.

She graduated in 2020 and was the sole valedictorian of her class, and was also the only Black woman to receive the honour in the school’s 179-year history according to the Power List.

Oriuwa is also an accomplished spoken-word artist who has competed nationally as a slam poet, and a video of her 2017 poem Woman, Black has been viewed more than 12,000 times on YouTube.

Oriuwa said she spoke at her old high school in Brampton and had a young Black woman tell her that she wanted to be a doctor “because you did it, and you’re just like us’.”

“To be able to inspire them is so incredible for me,” Oriuwa said.

In August, toy maker Mattel selected Oriuwa for its Barbie Role Models program as one of six women working on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic to be immortalised as a Barbie doll.

“It was such a full circle moment for me, as a young girl who played with Barbies and always really wanted to see myself reflected,” Oriuwa said in an interview. “Not only as a child who wanted to be a physician, but as a young Black girl.”

The psychiatry resident says she chose the field because it has “some of the most marginalised patient demographics in medicine.”