Propelled by an early vision to help others, Dr Abba Mallum tells Spotlight about his roots in Borno State, about opportunities in Stellenbosch and Durban, and about his pioneering PhD in radiotherapy and oncology.

In Borno State, Nigeria, soon after graduating from medical school, Dr Abba Mallum treated a young patient whose sad plight would shape his future. In Gamboru Ngala, on northeastern Nigeria's border with Cameroon near Lake Chad, Mallum paid the young woman's taxi fare to the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital - about 150km away - where she was to have a breast lump removed. But poverty interrupted her pathway to care.

Mallum recounts: "In Nigeria, the healthcare sector is out of pocket. Many people cannot afford it. So as a service to the community that produced me, I was seeing patients for free. A young lady in her twenties had a breast lump and I told her she needs to go to the tertiary centre to have it removed. She said they don't have transport money. I remember saying to her: 'I'm not giving you the money in hand.' Instead, I paid for the taxi and phoned a colleague and told him: 'There is this patient who is coming, please can you help them."'

Eight months later, Mallum, then appointed as a resident doctor at Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, saw the young woman again, but she was barely recognisable.

"The saddest...