Echi Di Ime
Echi Di Ime is my blog and podcast — a space for reflection on leadership, medical careers, women’s health, and social justice.
I draw on clinical practice, public health, and lived experience to make complex health issues clearer and more human.
What I write about
Women’s health across the life course
Periods, fertility, pregnancy, menopause, and getting heard in care.
Medical careers & leadership
Becoming a consultant involves identity shifts, boundaries, and confidence.
Health, power & systems
Equity, policy, and how structures shape outcomes.
Featured
Explore My Writing
Six Degrees of Healing: How Care is Political
A pregnant woman’s care is shaped by forces far beyond the clinic — from conflict and policy to data, history, and power.
This piece reflects on how care is never neutral, and why recognising its political nature is part of practising medicine with integrity.
Black Maternal Health in Scotland: the NAUWU Report
Black women in Scotland face higher risks in pregnancy, shaped by experience, access, and systems of care.
This piece reflects on what the NAUWU Report reveals — and what equity in maternal health actually requires.
Beyond Risk: Joy in Black Maternal Health
The narrative around Black and brown maternal health is too often anchored only in pain and disparity.
In this piece, I explore why celebrating resilience, dignity and joy — alongside honest accounts of harm — matters for care, advocacy and equitable systems.
Becoming a Consultant: Things Nobody Ever Tells You
The shift from resident to consultant feels like the first trimester of a pregnancy: exhilarating, unsettling, and full of lessons no one warns you about.
In this piece I share what I wish I’d known in those early months — the unexpected realities, boundaries, and rhythms that shape thriving in your new role.
Choosing Joy is Resistance
It’s been a long time. Where have I been? Embracing rest. Celebrating milestones. Choosing joy amidst the terror of humanity and staying tuned.
Why I Hate the Word "Resilience".
“Resilience” is everywhere — in medicine, in care, in life — but rarely unpacked with clarity or compassion.
Are you resilient, or have you normalised maladaptive behaviours to chronic stress? Now that’s a triggering question.
Imposter Syndrome isn’t Your Fault.
Imposter syndrome isn’t about weakness — it’s a response to spaces that were never made for you.
In this piece I reflect on why high achievers still feel like frauds, and why the real work isn’t “fixing you” but changing the environments that make you doubt yourself.
Why Race Isn’t a Risk Factor
When race is used as a proxy for biology, it quietly embeds bias into care.
This piece explains why race is not a risk factor — and why clinicians must look instead to systems, history, and lived experience.
Prescribing power: privilege is a bitter pill to swallow
Power and privilege shape who gets access, whose needs are heard, and how care is delivered.
This piece reflects on how power, positionality, and privilege influence health equity — and why understanding them is the first step toward fairer care
Beyond Bias: Race, Systems, and Obstetric Care
If we only treat race as a personal issue, we miss the ways it shapes systems and outcomes.
Drawing on my talk at RCOG 2023, this piece unpacks how systemic racism affects both patients and the clinicians who care for them — and what honest attention would look like.
I am Black and…
A spoken-word reflection on identity, storytelling, and the space between lived experience and statistics
When Clinical Excellence Isn’t Enough: Finding Ikigai in Medicine
Clinical training prepares us to be excellent, but not always to feel anchored.
In this reflection, I explore how discovering Ikigai helped me rethink purpose in medicine — beyond achievement, titles, and competence
5 Lessons in Self-Leadership (That I Wish I’d Learned Earlier.)
Self leadership is a critical skill in achieving career success, satisfaction and joy at work. I wish someone had told me this 10 years ago!
Rest as Resistance in Medicine
We ask doctors to endure without teaching them how to renew.
This reflection explores why rest isn’t indulgence, but a necessary practice in work that demands care, responsibility, and endurance.
Mentorship is Not a Luxury
Progress is rarely a solo effort, even when we pretend it is.
This piece reflects on mentorship as a relationship, responsibility, and quiet scaffolding — and why who holds you up matters more than we often admit.
How to Make the Most out of your Next Doctor’sVisit
There are always at least two experts in the room. Let’s chat about how to flex your expertise and advocate for yourself when you next see your gynaecologist.
C- Sections Vs Vaginal births: are all births are equal?
One in five babies around the world is born by caesarean — but the stories and experiences behind those births are rarely told. This piece weaves clinical context with lived experience to celebrate all births and challenge the stigma around surgical birth.
More Than Hair: Beauty, Exposure, and Reproductive Health
Our skin is our largest organ, constantly in contact with the environment. Black women are disproportionately exposed to toxic chemicals in everyday beauty products, with real consequences for reproductive health. This piece isn’t just about hair — it’s about exposure, power, and environmental justice.
The Dark Side of AI: How Algorithms Fuel Gender Inequality
Technology reflects the world that made it, and too often that world leaves women behind.
I explore how artificial intelligence can either widen inequities or be shaped to support fairer health outcomes.
Reflections from the 67th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW67)
The future is digital. The widening digital gender gap negatively impacts the whole of society, not just women and girls. I reflect on my experience of attending the United Nations CSW67.
