General News of 2026-09-07
Meet Dr Penelope Adinku: Ghana’s first female cardiothoracic surgeon
Dr Penelope Baaba Tettey Adinku has made history as Ghana’s first female cardiothoracic surgeon, breaking new ground in a highly specialised field of medicine.
She achieved the milestone following the completion of her fellowship training with the West African College of Surgeons.
At the 2022 Fellowship Examinations, Dr Adinku was adjudged the best candidate in Cardiothoracic Surgery, becoming the first Ghanaian woman to attain the status of a cardiothoracic surgeon.
However, becoming a heart surgeon was not part of her childhood plans.
As a young girl, Dr Adinku was more interested in books. She enjoyed reading Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, The Famous Five and The Babysitters Club and also loved dancing, while church gradually became an important part of her life.
She dreamed of becoming an author of children’s books and was reserved and competitive as a child.
Medicine eventually became an option through her family. Her father, Ambrose Tettey, is a pharmacist, while her mother is a teacher.
Her immediate older sister entered medical school before her, and watching her sister’s journey, together with the encouragement of her parents, eventually influenced Dr Adinku to pursue medicine.
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Her earliest memories of hospitals were, interestingly, linked to recovery. Whenever she was admitted as a child, her parents knew she was improving when she would tell her father, “Daddy, I can spell…”
She eventually discovered her passion for surgery during her final year of medical school. While rotating through the Department of Surgery, she watched surgeons treat patients and realised that she wanted to become one.
Her interest in cardiothoracic surgery heightened during her housemanship in paediatrics, where she encountered children with congenital heart disease.
The experience developed in her a desire to help such children and drew her towards the highly specialised field of cardiothoracic surgery.
The decision was not without resistance. Some health professionals discouraged her because of the demanding nature of cardiothoracic surgery.
Her family, however, encouraged her to continue pursuing her ambition.
“They had more faith in me than I had in myself at the time,” she recalled in an interview with The Spectator.
Her academic journey has taken her through some of Ghana’s leading institutions.
She is an alumna of Wesley Girls Senior High School and holds an MBChB from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), a PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of Ghana and a certificate in Health Leadership from the University of Washington.
In May 2022, Dr Adinku further cemented her place in Ghana’s medical history when she successfully performed a complex open-heart surgery on a six-year-old girl who was suffering from Tetralogy of Fallot, a congenital heart defect.
Beyond her historic achievement in Ghana, she has received international recognition for her work and potential, including the IAP Young Physician Leader Award, the Young Star Award and the Valerie Rusch Mentored Career Development Award from the American Association for Thoracic Surgery.
Dr Adinku is married to Rev Ernest Adinku, a banker.
For her, however, the significance of her achievement extends beyond becoming a surgeon.
She is hopeful that her story will inspire young girls to pursue careers in fields that have traditionally been dominated by men.
JKB/BAI
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