Peter Kanyiri, Pharm.D., grew up in Kenya under a dictatorship, so for him democracy is something to celebrate.
“Any opposing opinion was never tolerated” under Daniel arap Moi, who ruled Kenya for almost 25 years, said Kanyiri, a pharmacist at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Plano. “People would disappear.”
He started at Texas Health Plano in 2005 as a pharmacy technician and eventually used the system’s tuition reimbursement program to obtain his doctorate and become a pharmacist.
“I am awed by Peter’s journey to do his life’s best work at Texas Health,” said Carla Dawson, chief people officer. “We support our employees’ advancement in many ways, from tools like tuition reimbursement to the way his colleagues lived Our Texas Health Promise when they encouraged him to keep going.”
From Kenya to Texas
When he arrived in California in 1999 to flee the dictatorship, Kanyiri barely spoke English. He had grown up on a farm in Kenya, raised with three sisters and a brother by his single mother.
“I never knew what democracy was until I came here,” he said. “I vote here, just walk in and vote.”
He went to work at a hospital as a security guard, was intrigued by the way pharmacists worked with patients and became a pharmacy technician.
Kanyiri and his family moved to Texas, where he found work at Texas Health Plano. He loved the job, but something was missing. He wanted to work with patients, and his managers urged him to take his education further.
“The pharmacists used to tell me, ‘You’re so smart; do better than this position. You can actually be hands-on in patient care.’ They encouraged me. Everyone said I could do it.” And so he did.
One of the pharmacists who urged him to continue was Stacey Phillips, Pharm.D., who is still at Texas Health Plano.
“Peter was my tech for five years when I was the night pharmacist,” she said. “He was an amazing tech, but his passion, hard work and intelligence led me to encourage him to go further. He works so hard and is determined to make a difference everywhere he goes and with everyone he meets. I feel very blessed to call him my co-worker and friend.”
Texas Health’s willingness to let him work part time and do his clinicals at the hospital while working toward his doctorate helped, but it still wasn’t easy.
At one point, Kanyiri was attending school in Nevada, returning every three weeks to work weekends at Texas Health Plano. His family time was so limited, he said, his wife would get gifts for the children, wrap them, leave them in the mailbox and tell them their dad had sent them.
“Through struggle, hardship and all of that journey, God has been sufficient to me and my family,” Kanyiri said. Today, Texas Health Plano is “part of me, part of who I have become,” he said.
Texas Health R.I.S.E
Eager to learn more, Kanyiri recently completed the R.I.S.E. (Readying Inspiring Leaders with Skills to Promote Equity) program, which is a collaboration between the Government and Community Affairs and People and Culture teams.
Some of the nuances he learned about diversity, equity and inclusion during the four-month program changed the way he interacts with patients, visitors and co-workers.
For example, Kanyiri has an accent and, before R.I.S.E., he had gotten tired of people asking about it.
“Now I really love it,” he said. “It’s an opportunity for me to express myself. It’s that aspect of getting comfortable with who you are and respecting other people for who they are.”
“If you understand them, you can appreciate them. You don’t have to be like them to appreciate them.”
He praised his experience in the R.I.S.E. program as one of the ways “Texas Health is doing a lot of work behind the scenes to make sure anyone who comes through our doors — employees, consumers, visitors — feel embraced and like they belong.”
