Dr. Yaovi Djossou

Dr. Yaovi Djossou is a senior general surgeon at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) Campus de Lomé, Togo's second major university teaching hospital and the principal base for surgical training in the country. With over 21 years of operative experience, Dr. Djossou is among the most senior practising surgeons in Togo and has contributed substantially to the development of surgical capacity at a hospital that must serve a vast catchment population with limited specialist resources.

Dr. Djossou's surgical career has been defined by the realities and demands of practising in a high-volume public hospital in West Africa, where he routinely manages emergency surgical conditions — acute abdomen, trauma, intestinal obstruction, and complications of infectious disease — alongside elective procedures. His breadth of operative skill spans abdominal surgery, thyroid and breast surgery, and trauma, reflecting the generalist demands of surgery in a setting where sub-specialisation is limited by the available workforce. He consults and operates in French, Togo's language of professional practice, and communicates with patients from the Ewe-speaking coastal communities in their local language, a capacity that is especially valued in the trust-sensitive context of surgical consent.

Dr. Djossou completed his medical education at the Université de Lomé's Faculté des Sciences de la Santé, earning his Doctorat en Médecine after a rigorous six-year undergraduate programme that included extensive clinical placements at CHU Sylvanus Olympio and CHU Campus. He then undertook post-graduate surgical specialisation through the Université de Lomé's structured residency programme in general surgery, culminating in the award of the Diplôme de Spécialité en Chirurgie Générale. His training encompassed elective and emergency abdominal surgery, orthopaedic trauma, gynaecological surgery liaison, and paediatric surgical emergencies. He has since attended advanced surgical skills workshops at regional centres in Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire, and has benefited from visiting surgeon programmes that have periodically brought laparoscopic surgical expertise to CHU Campus de Lomé.

Dr. Djossou's operative expertise encompasses the full scope of general surgery required at a major West African teaching hospital. In emergency surgery, he is highly experienced in performing trauma laparotomies following road traffic accidents — a major cause of surgical morbidity in Lomé — and in managing acute abdominal emergencies including perforated appendicitis, strangulated hernia, and typhoid intestinal perforation. His elective operative list includes open and laparoscopic hernia repair, cholecystectomy for symptomatic gallstone disease, bowel resection for colorectal pathology, and thyroidectomy for goitre and thyroid nodules, the latter being particularly prevalent in Togo's iodine-deficient inland regions.

Dr. Djossou also manages breast disease, performing mastectomy and axillary clearance for breast cancer in a setting where patients often present at advanced stages due to limited screening. He performs wound care, debridement, and skin grafting for burns and complex soft tissue infections, and manages the surgical complications of tropical parasitoses including amoebic liver abscess. He supervises the surgical residency programme at CHU Campus and performs a high proportion of emergency out-of-hours surgery given the limited number of specialist surgeons in the country.

Dr. Djossou has co-authored retrospective case series examining surgical outcomes in typhoid intestinal perforation and strangulated hernia at CHU Campus de Lomé, contributing to the sparse but growing literature on emergency surgical outcomes in Francophone West Africa. He has presented operative findings at national surgical meetings organised by the Association Togolaise de Chirurgie and has participated in regional College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa (COSECSA) knowledge-exchange activities as part of West Africa's engagement with regional surgical training initiatives.

CHU Campus de Lomé's surgical department serves patients from across Togo's regions, as well as patients from Benin and Ghana who present with surgical emergencies or seek elective procedures at Lomé's public hospital system. Dr. Djossou regularly performs elective surgery for members of the Togolese diaspora who return to Lomé for hernia repair, cholecystectomy, and other planned procedures at significantly lower cost than in their countries of residence. He is comfortable consulting in French with international patients and can communicate in Ewe for those from the coastal communities. For planned surgical admissions, patients are advised to contact CHU Campus de Lomé's admissions office to arrange pre-operative assessment and scheduling.

Dr. Djossou is recognised within the Togolese surgical community as a senior practitioner and educator whose career has helped sustain surgical capacity at CHU Campus de Lomé through periods of significant staffing pressure. He has received institutional recognition from the CHU Campus de Lomé directorate for his contribution to the surgical training of junior doctors and has been commended by the Association Togolaise de Chirurgie for his long service to the profession. He is regarded as a reliable and technically accomplished surgeon by colleagues across both of Lomé's major university hospitals.