• Abinya was born in Siaya in 1951 and schooled at Mulaha Primary School in Karemo
• He is the founder, chair and patron of Kenya Society of Haematology and Oncology
Image: COURTESY
Dr Nicholas Abinya hung his boots as a professor at the University of Nairobi on December 31, 2020.
This was exactly 33 years after the university hired him as a lecturer in 1987.
He worked as a lecturer in the faculty of medicine, the section of haematology/oncology, between 1987 and 1997.
He was then promoted to senior lecturer in 1997, a position he held till 2004 when he became an associate professor.
At the UoN, he was the director of the medical oncology fellowship programme and head of haematology/oncology at the Kenyatta National Hospital.
Haematology is the study of blood and diseases related to blood.
In 2009 and 2010, he was head of oncology at Aga Khan University Hospital, Nairobi.
Abinya was born in Siaya in 1951 and schooled at Mulaha Primary School, located in Karemo near Siaya Town.
However, he sat his Kenya Primary Education at Lake Victoria Primary School, in Kisumu, in 1967.
He afterwards joined Alliance High School, where he sat the East Africa Certificate of Education, and the Higher School Certificate.
He joined the UoN in 1974 for a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery.
He later studied for a Master's degree in internal medicine in the same university and a took two-year training in medical oncology at the Royal London Hospital, UK. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
Abinya began working as a medical officer-intern at the Nyanza Provincial General Hospital, in Kisumu, in 1979.
He also worked in the district hospitals in Homa Bay, Nyamira the North-Eastern Provincial General Hospital in Garissa and the Kenyatta National Hospital, where he still offers specialist services.
Dr Abinya is currently a medical oncologist practising at the Nairobi Hospital.
He is also the chairman of the Cancer Research and Communications Organisation of Nairobi, and the Nairobi Hospital Multidisciplinary Tumour Board.
His research interests are in malignant haematology and breast cancer, in which he has published widely in peer-reviewed journals. He also has a keen interest in molecular oncology.
He founded Kenya Society of Haematology and Oncology (Kesho), of which he was the first chair and is still its patron.
He has authored a textbook titled Drug Treatment of Haematologic Neoplasms. He has also coauthored cancer booklets and has written chapters in several books. His latest book, titled Shadow in Perpetuity, was initially released in December 2019.
Abinya is married with four grown-up children and grandchildren.