Since she was 3 years old, according to her mother, Nakia Allen, M.D., wanted to be a doctor.
“I veered away twice,” said Allen, once to consider a career as a meteorologist and another as a schoolteacher. But then, she said, she would “wake up in the morning and realize the energy that comes with medicine.”
That’s fortunate for the patients she cares for as a pediatrician with the Henry Ford Medical Group and for the students she serves as the recently named community assistant dean for the MSU College of Human Medicine’s Detroit Campus. She also serves as the director of undergraduate medical education for Henry Ford Health.
Allen herself graduated from the College of Human Medicine in 2007 after earning her bachelor’s degree in microbiology from the University of Michigan. She succeeds Eileen Hug, D.O., who recently retired as the founding community assistant dean for the Detroit Campus.
“I’ve never been a one-trick pony,” Allen said, adding that she enjoys all her roles as physician, teacher, and administrator.
In announcing her appointment, College of Human Medicine Dean Aron Sousa described Allen as “an energetic advocate for children.” She was drawn to pediatrics, Allen said, because “children have this amazing energy, even when they’re sick. Who wouldn’t want to take care of someone like that?”
She emphasizes to her students that a patient “is not just someone who is sick,” she said. “This is a person.” And a physician doesn’t just treat the sick child, she added, but the family, considering the social determinants of health, such as whether the family has enough food, adequate housing, reliable transportation and other factors.
“I want the family to feel that they’ve been heard and that their concerns have been met,” she said.
She couldn’t keep the long hours without the support of her husband, Yul, and the help of a team of medical providers.
The college’s partnership with Henry Ford Health “has amazing possibilities,” she said, for expanding medical education and improving the health of Michigan residents. Allen spent her early childhood in Grand Blanc, Mich., before her family moved to Texas.
She returned to Michigan for college and medical school and to teach and practice medicine. “It feels good to be home,” she said. “I feel really dedicated to the people of this city.”
Many of her College of Human Medicine classmates also call Detroit home.
“We are here,” Allen said, “and we are ready to work.”
Original published at humanmedicine.msu.edu.