Dr Coker qualified from the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Nigeria and had his specialist surgical training in the United Kingdom. He was appointed Clinical Lecturer in Surgery at University of Sheffield and Consultant General and Laparoscopic Surgeon at Doncaster and Bassetlaw NHS Trust (DBH NHS Trust) in 1999. He joined Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET – UK based charity) in 2000 as a surgical instructor and appointed member board of trustees from 2006 – 2010. He served as Chairman of the International Development Committee of Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland at the Royal College of Surgeons of England from 2007 – 2010. He was Director of Endoscopy Services at DBH NHS Trust from 2005 – 2010.
Dr Coker was the Coordinator of the West African College of Surgeons in the United Kingdom from 2008 to 2011 and received an award at the Golden Jubilee Conference of the West African College of Surgeons (2010) for organizing the first pre-conference WACS surgical outreach program in Calabar, Nigeria. He was the principal instructor on advanced colorectal surgery at the Nairobi Surgical Skills Centre, University of Nairobi, Kenya from 2007 – 2015 with biannual training workshops for East African surgeons.
In January 2011 he left the UK for sabbatical in Lagos, Nigeria to lead the surgical strategy including laparoscopic and colorectal surgery and was appointed Chief of Surgery at Lagoon Hospitals, Lagos. He worked in close collaboration with the Quality Improvement unit to achieve JointCommissionInternational (JCI) accreditation for Lagoon Hospital in 2011 (the first of such in sub-Saharan Africa) with reaccreditations in 2014 and 2018. After his two-year sabbatical, he resigned from the UK National Health Service in December 2012 to take up permanent appointment with Hygeia Nigeria as Group Clinical Adviser.
In 2015 he was appointed Chief Medical Director, a post he held till September 2019. He is the President of Laparoscopic Surgery Society of Nigeria and Board member Society for Quality Healthcare in Nigeria where he is also the Chairman, Technical Committee. He is an alumnus of the AMP program, European Business School at INSEAD, Fontainebleau in France.
