Embracing Life: Odamea Akomah Gbamuse
MSK Celebrates Black History Month 2021
Each year during the month of February, our country takes time to intentionally highlight and celebrate Black History Month. This year, through a collaboration with the BLAM ERN, we are privileged to highlight MSK staff and the personal significance that Black History Month has for each of them.
Image of Odamea Akomah Gbamuse
Odamea Akomah Gbamuse, a Project Manager in Hospital Operations Solutions, grew up in Brooklyn, went to boarding school in Massachusetts, and attended college in Virginia. Her journey took her up and down the East Coast, but she has found a home at MSK.
She was raised in Brownsville, Brooklyn, the youngest of four siblings and the second girl. While in middle school, she was asked to participate in the Prep for Prep Program, a leadership development program that offers promising students of color access to a private school education. Through the program, she found herself at the prestigious Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts. “When I was accepted to boarding school, I knew race would be something that could be an obstacle for me,” Mrs. Gbamuse says. “I was going to attend a school that had a max of 350 students and, on average, about 20 to 30 students who looked like me. What I did not expect was to return to my study booth one night during my senior year and find a note that read ‘No N****** in the library.’”
It was a jarring discovery that left the young Odamea questioning the character of her schoolmates. But rather than allow the ugliness of the note to defeat her, she chose to be motivated by it. From then on, “I made it a point to prove that people who looked like me belonged anywhere we wanted to be,” she says.
A Return to New York
After graduating from the University of Richmond in Virginia, Mrs. Gbamuse returned to New York. Unfortunately, her homecoming occurred in the middle of the Great Recession of 2009. She had stayed in touch with a recruiter from MSK since college and was approached about a few opportunities before finding the right fit as an Office Coordinator at MSK in 2010.
Always Moving Ahead
In her current role as a Project Manager, she supports system initiatives and rollouts and troubleshoots hospital operations, both inpatient and outpatient. She recently helped with the rollout of MSK CarePass (MSK’s real-time locating system) and MSK Compass at the Koch Center and MSK Westchester, as well as CIS status boards. She’s currently helping to explore mobile options that would allow MSK patients to get their blood drawn at home. She enjoys her work, saying it gives her “a window into what the hospital is currently doing and what is yet to come.”
Group of people smiling with Odamea in the middle wearing her graduation robe
While her undergraduate degree is in Chemistry, Mrs. Gbamuse earned a Master of Community Health at the City University of New York and studied Health Informatics at Columbia after joining MSK.
As it has for so many in the MSK community, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a brutal effect on Mrs. Gbamuse and her family, even during moments of great joy. “The birth of my son was a huge life change that helped me overcome the challenges we faced earlier,” she says. “He was born at the beginning of the pandemic; I gave birth to him alone, and while I was COVID-19 positive. Since his birth, I have lost a brother to COVID-19 and my dearest uncle to a massive heart attack.”
Navigating motherhood without her own mother to help her was made even more difficult by COVID-19. And, of course, 2020 will be remembered for more than the pandemic, as overwhelming as that has been; social unrest and a long overdue reckoning with systemic racism are also part of the year’s legacy. True to form, Mrs. Gbamuse has found reason to feel inspired.
“The birth of my son right before the awakening of the nation on racial issues and how Blacks are disproportionately affected by police shootings has made me more determined to make a positive impact on the world we live in today,” she says. Ultimately, she feels hopeful for her son’s future, saying “His bright smile, a gift from his father, and his laugh remind me that everything I am doing is for him.”
When asked to share her thoughts about Black History Month and what it means to her, Mrs. Gbamuse says: “Black History Month is extremely important to me. In my youth, I wasn’t accepted by some because I was the child of immigrants, and I wasn’t accepted by others because I was born in the United States. I wear both identities with pride. Black History Month is a time to acknowledge those who came before us and the work they have done to get us where we are, commend those who are continuing the work, and inspire those who will pick up the torch and move forward.”
Wedding photo showing bride and groom in traditional outfits