The two board-certified physicians recently joined Sanford Health to fill gaps in primary-care offerings at its clinics in Minot.

Ugobi, who has been practicing in Minot since 2019, joined Sanford’s Northwest Clinic in August.

A native of Nigeria, Ugobi was drawn toward medicine as a youth but he also had an interest in engineering, which initially won out in the tussle between the two. He received a bachelor’s degree in engineering in Nigeria and went on to get a master’s degree in a technology field called telematics in Great Britain. He worked for about two years as an IT administrator, coming to Canada during that time.

“My first love for medicine did not go away. That’s why doing engineering and IT on top of that, I still had to come back to medicine before I felt satisfied that I was doing what I needed to do,” he said. “I think I feel more fulfilled being a doctor than I would have if I had remained in engineering and IT.”

Dr. Ndu David Ugobi, shown at Sanford’s Northwest Clinic, brings full-time pediatric care to the Minot clinic.

He did his medical studies in the Caribbean and completed his residency in pediatrics in Michigan state. He completed a Fellowship in pediatric neurology in Ontario, Canada.

Interested in returning to the United States, Ugobi chose Minot because of its family-oriented values. He and his wife have four children, ages 11 to almost 19, who enjoy participating in sports and attend Our Redeemer’s Christian School.

Ugobi said the array of specialists available through Sanford, along with the company culture, attracted him to the medical system. Sanford’s emphasis on work-life balance for physicians has been important to Ugobi, who has experienced the pressures and sacrifices that are common in his profession.

“If the doctors are suffering burnout, it also translates to poor patient care. In other words, you have to be well to make people well,” said Ugobi, who completed a leadership program through Harvard about five years ago that brought that issue to light. “It’s not uncommon for doctors to not come forward to say they can’t cope anymore or they need help, just because you’re expected to not be weak. You’re expected to be a superstar, and that starts from medical school.”

He said systemic supports and available resources within the medical community can help. Even something as simple as regular clinician wellness newsletters have value in reminding doctors that they need to take care of themselves, he said.

Doctors who care for themselves are more attentive to their patients, and listening to patients is the secret to helping them get well, he said. Because their patients are young and might not yet be verbal, pediatricians have a unique responsibility to seek nonverbal cues and integrate that with what family members can tell them, he said.

Ugobi approaches his patients’ concerns with a problem-solving mindset. If a parent suspects an ear infection but tests show there is none, the case isn’t over for him. The patient has an answer, but not a solution. There’s still a problem to be solved. Sometimes the answer might have nothing to do with medicine, Ugobi explained.

He’s seen instances in which children were not sleeping well or had unexplained sweating but they checked out well physically. He had to work the problem from environmental and lifestyle angles until unearthing the causes. In that respect, his engineering training in troubleshooting has proven useful at times, he said.

Getting past an answer to a solution can be critical for patients, too, Ugobi noted. He recalls a young patient with a serious thyroid disorder that would not have been diagnosed without persistence in seeking a solution to a problem that could easily have been dismissed based on answers to the usual questions.

“The most important thing that parents should know is not to wait until children are sick before seeing the doctor. We do have what we call well-child checks,” Ugobi said. “They can preempt problems and they do help us monitor development and growth. Intertwined with that are what we call evidence-based recommendations to screen for certain things, depending on age, depending on family history and other things that may be going on in that child’s life, and that way we can prevent or mitigate problems. So I encourage parents to take advantage of the well-child visits.”

Azure joined Sanford’s Highway 2 Clinic in October. As a family practitioner, Azure is filling a role for Sanford that hasn’t been filled on a full-time basis for about four and a half years while adding new services as a sports medicine physician. She said there’s value in having a full-time doctor at the clinic who lives in and understands the community.

“It was an easy transition for me. I love the community,” she said.

Azure attended the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis and completed her residency in family medicine with the University of North Dakota’s program in Minot. She completed a Fellowship in sports medicine at Altru in Grand Forks. Her goal all along was to return to her hometown.

“I’ve been in this community for a long time. Some of the providers are kind of mentors and peers,” she said. “I was able to job shadow when I was even in high school. Then I just had great role models that kept encouraging me to pursue medicine.”

Since joining Sanford, she has been providing general family care while building her sports medicine practice.

“The core of it is really treating nonathletes and athletes with their muscle-skeletal injuries, whether that’s the weekend warrior or high school athlete or even collegiate athletes,” she said.

Azure was a cheerleader through college. Now in her leisure, she enjoys watching sports, riding horses and playing pickleball, basketball and volleyball. She and her partner also enjoy hiking and car racing,

During her Fellowship at Altru, Azure worked with football and hockey players, managing fractures, concussions and optimizing their health with nutrition and strengthening. She is trained in providing ultrasound-guided diagnostics and therapeutic procedures both on and off the playing field.

She has volunteered her medical services at the Fargo marathon and an intramural hockey tournament.

Her presence at Sanford creates opportunities for the clinic to expand its sports coverage in the Minot region, which Azure looks forward to because attending sporting events is a favorite activity. Athletic trainers are the frontline, but having a sports medicine physician present and ready to step in enhances the level of service – and is a required level of service at some colleges, she said.

Azure also spends time in the athletes’ training rooms, following up on athletes seen on the field and coordinating care.

Azure works closely with Sanford’s orthopedic doctors, who come to Minot twice a month. She helps manage their patients between those Minot visits and can refer other patients for evaluation to their care if needed.

“It’s kind of me being that middle person to help people navigate the system a little bit more comfortably,” she said.

She also serves as a resource for Sanford’s other Minot medical providers, who now have a local physician to refer patients with muscle-skeletonal concerns.

Azure said she enjoys working with patients of all ages, not only to care for injuries and illnesses but to provide diet and exercise prescriptions as well as education about living healthier. Whether it is giving sports physicals to young athletes or helping older patients deal with arthritis or osteoporosis, she wants her patients to be at their best, she said.

“My goal is to get people into my clinic that want to get better, stay better, get stronger and really optimize their health and wellbeing for long-term longevity. I can advocate for that just by being here and understanding the community’s needs,” she said.