Dr. Chike Ilorah, a neurologist who recently joined the Brookwood Baptist Health Specialty Care Network, made his career choice early in life.
Born in Nigeria, Ilorah said he knew at “a tender age” he wanted to be a doctor.
“This came from my admiration for physicians and a passion to help patients,” Ilorah said.
In his work as an interventional neurologist at Brookwood Baptist Health, Ilorah uses the latest technologies to help treat or prevent stroke.
For example, he performs mechanical thrombectomies, using tiny wires and catheters to go from the groin all the way to the brain to remove blood clots that could cause strokes.
Ilorah treats brain aneurysms using minimally invasive techniques like flow diverter devices, endovascular coiling and the Woven Endo Bridge, a tiny device that is placed inside the aneurysm.
The WEB “cuts off blood flow to the aneurysm and, over time, the aneurysm deteriorates,” he said.
He’s also skilled in employing stents to treat the stenosis, or narrowing, of veins and arteries in the neck or brain.
“We can put in a tiny stent in a vein to open it up,” he said.
Another minimally invasive technique Ilorah uses is embolization, meaning to purposely block the flow of blood through an artery or vein.
Embolization can help treat chronic subdural hemorrhage, severe nose bleeding and brain tumors.
“If you do surgery to remove the tumor, you could have massive bleeding, so we go from the groin with wires and catheters and block the blood flow to that tumor, and it will get smaller,” Ilorah said.
At that point, it becomes easier for a neurosurgeon to remove the tumor, he said.
Ilorah is also skilled in using diagnostic cerebral and spinal angiograms.
He attended medical school at Nnamdi Azikiwe University in Nigeria and earned a Master’s of Public Health from The University of Louisville.
He served as chief resident at The University of Illinois-Peoria and earned fellowships in vascular neurology and endovascular surgical neuroradiology at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine.
The neurology team at Brookwood Baptist Medical Center — a certified Primary Stroke Center — is dedicated to 24/7 care for all stroke patients.
“Regardless of time, day, weather, we are available to see patients,” Ilorah said.
The team treats “all modalities of stroke,” he said.
“A patient coming to Brookwood can rest assured that they will get the best treatment of anywhere in the country,” Ilorah said
Ilorah is happy with his new position at Brookwood Baptist Health.
“It’s an excellent hospital,” he said. “They have a good team, the staff are very nice and there’s a diverse patient population.
“Coming with my skill set, I can help patients and help the hospital grow,” he said.
Ilorah’s choice early in life to become a doctor has worked out well, and his career is rewarding.
A doctor is able to experience “going home happy that you saved someone’s life or made someone’s life better,” Ilorah said. “There’s nothing more gratifying or satisfying than that.”
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