Illinois Department of Public Health director honored by USA TODAY

Dr. Ngozi Ezike is one of USA TODAY’s Women of the Year, a recognition of women across the country who have made a significant impact. The annual program is a continuation of Women of the Century, a 2020 project that commemorated the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote. Meet this year’s honorees at womenoftheyear.usatoday.com.

The global pandemic wasn’t something Dr. Ngozi Ezike signed up for when she became director of the Illinois Department of Public Health in 2019, but she has shown dogged dedication leading the state’s diverse population through the crisis. 

The last two years have been an endless series of long days, weekend meetings and interrupted holidays. An unprecedented crisis for which there is no playbook, the COVID-19 pandemic has required endless research and nimble thinking to manage an ever-changing situation. 

“We were flying the plane as we were building it,” said Ezike. “I think the public saw firsthand how science evolved.”

With the number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations dropping in Illinois, Ezike tendered her resignation at the end of February. Gov. JB Pritzker lauded Ezike for her leadership through the crisis.

“Dr. Ngozi Ezike has led the Illinois Department of Public Health for over three years, her tenure defined not only by her ability to provide the latest expertise and data, but also her empathy and compassion – becoming a beacon of stability for millions during a time of tremendous uncertainty,” said Pritzker. “No number of sleepless nights and endless days could wear down her commitment to think first and foremost of Illinois’ most vulnerable. Her departure is a change I am loathe to accept, but I have utmost faith that Dr. Ezike’s next journey will also bring more good to the world – as has been the hallmark of every step of her career. She will go down in the Illinois history books as a woman who saved lives and changed our state for the better.”

Ezike is only the second woman – and the first African American woman – to head the 145-year-old Illinois Department of Public Health. She’s also likely the first IDPH director to become a household name, an offshoot of speaking at daily televised news briefings in the early months of the pandemic.   

Ezike, a board-certified internist and pediatrician, worked for Cook County Health for more than 15 years prior to becoming director of IDPH. She was also the medical director for Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center, and is a nationally recognized expert on health care in the juvenile criminal justice system. 

Raised in Los Angeles, Ezike’s career path was determined at a young age by her father, who came to the U.S. from Nigeria to study chemistry. Ezike followed in his footsteps, studying chemistry at Harvard before earning a medical degree from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine. An internship and residency at Rush Medical Center brought her to Illinois. 

The mother of four children, Ezike credits her husband, Dr. Emeka Ezike, and her faith in a higher power for helping her deal with the stress of the pandemic. 

In her role as director of IDPH, Ezike brings diversity not only through her personal background, but also through her interest in others from diverse backgrounds. She is fluent in Igbo, the native language of both her parents, as well as Spanish and French. She also knows basic greetings in many more languages. As a doctor, she frequently greets patients in their own language. 

“Connecting with people in their own tongue displays a cultural humility, that you understand that it’s not all about English, or one dominant culture or language,” she said. 

In an effort to connect with Illinois’ significant Latino population, Ezike has translated her COVID-19 updates into Spanish at every single news conference, an effort she says paid off. 

“I can’t tell you how many people have come up to me and said, ‘Because of you and because your agency was intentional in making sure the Spanish-speaking population got the requisite information, they were able to make choices to save their lives,’” said Ezike. “I heard that over and over again.” 

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

In my father’s culture, the smartest people go to med school. Our pediatrician signaled to Dad, “Oh, my goodness, I’ve never seen a child walk at 7 months, that’s going to be a sign of intelligence.” He predicted that she’s going to be very smart and very athletic. So my dad ran with it, and said, “Great, we’ll finally have the first doctor ever in either family.”

After high school, I wanted to take a year off to train for volleyball and make a go of that, and my father was like, “That’s a hard no.” I was in athletics in high school and I still have all these records and banners up on the wall at my school, even 30 years later. I was most valuable player for volleyball and basketball. I had multiple offers to play college sports, and my father was like, “Nope, I don’t want you to play sports in college. You are going to be a student preparing for med school.”

As a person who represents two groups, both as a woman and a person of color – and a mother – I inherently bring to the table concerns that other people may not have lived. Being able to be at the table and actually lead allows me to also teach some important lessons to everyone about why you need to have different voices. Being able to bring that holistic feel to the discussions helps us get better results for everyone.

As a person who represents two groups, both as a women and a person of color – and a mother – I inherently bring to the table concerns that other people may not have lived … But being able to be at the table and actually lead allows me to also teach some important lessons to everyone about why you need to have different voices.

Well, it wasn’t a walk in the park before the pandemic. There’s always an emergency. We had the measles outbreak; we had the vaping incidents which took lives. … It’s a really big state, so trying to navigate and drive to cover all parts of the state … I was busy. But it was a different type of busy. In March, April and May, I was at the governor’s office every single day, seven days a week, until 7, 8 o’clock at night. It was pretty intense. I wasn’t traveling as much around the state, but it was just high-stakes, high-pressure with new information coming out every second. It was evolving every hour.

It did, and it didn’t. It was more hopeful, thinking, “Yay, now we have a tool that can shepherd us to the end and minimize the suffering and loss.” But there was this intense challenge, and the pushback to the vaccine, and really trying to keep coming up with finding the right messages, making sure you are actively reaching out to groups who are having the worst outcomes with COVID and yet have the lowest vaccine rates.

Every time when we were counting these death tolls, I would feel like, what was I not able to do, how was I not able to resonate with that significant minority of people who are choosing to not get vaccinated and then suffer such severe consequences? I’m a physician. I spent many years of training to help keep people well and live their best life, and I felt kind of responsible for these individuals. I couldn’t overcome the information that they had received, I couldn’t supplant it so that they would make a decision that would support themselves and their families. That is an ongoing challenge, still.

The biggest win is just the incredible teamwork and collaboration that I have enjoyed with IDPH. We have the most incredible people who are doing all this incredible work on behalf of the residents of Illinois, and they’re not getting the accolades – they are not in front of the camera, and they’re not getting the awards. They’re just doing what they have been called to do in terms of making things better, and they’ve done it, tirelessly, for two years straight. . I’m really proud of the team, and I’m proud of the collaboration I’ve made, so many enduring relationships through this journey.

We’re going through all kinds of transitions in our society – I’m very excited to see the support for Black people and the desire to fight racism following the public murder of George Floyd, and I thought that was signaling a better time moving forward in terms of how we were going to work to make sure that all people had rights. But now, when I see how we’re trying to limit rights, how we can’t pass some of these civil rights voting acts, I’m a little concerned, and so I’m glad to be a representative of a (minority) community to show that we need leaders from all backgrounds, that we are all capable of doing a great job on all these different fronts. I know some people really react negatively to diversity, equity and inclusion, and I hope that, when you see different people in different roles, and you see the different things that they bring to the roles, that you can appreciate how there are significant benefits to making sure that everyone is included in all the important work that needs to be done, and the benefits of having diverse voices and thoughts in creating a more comprehensive plan.

Leslie Renken can be reached at 309-370-5087 or [email protected]. Follow her on Facebook.com/leslie.renken.