09/01/2026
Baxter Health Welcomes Esosa Ukponmwan, MD, MPH, to the Nephrology Clinic
Baxter Health is pleased to welcome Esosa Ukponmwan, MD, MPH, to the Baxter Health Nephrology Clinic. Dr. Ukponmwan joins a team that includes Dr. Grant Mathews, Joyce Stratmoen, APRN, and Meagan Thitoff, APRN, bringing additional depth and expertise to the care available for kidney patients across north central Arkansas and southern Missouri. He will begin seeing patients in early September.
Ukponmwan has spent his career learning how to care for patients with kidney disease from every angle. He completed his nephrology fellowship at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Medical Center, where he cared for patients with both sudden and long-term kidney problems, managed patients on dialysis, and worked alongside transplant teams at the University of California San Francisco supporting patients before and after kidney transplant surgery. That kind of training, in a large, complex health system with some of the most challenging cases in the country, builds a breadth of clinical judgment that is hard to come by.
For patients whose kidneys can no longer do their job on their own, dialysis is often the treatment that keeps them alive and feeling as well as possible. Ukponmwan has worked directly with patients on both hemodialysis, where a machine filters the blood, and peritoneal dialysis, where the filtering happens through the lining of the abdomen at home. He understands not just the medical side of these treatments, but what they mean for a patient’s daily life, and he approaches that work with care.
Before his nephrology fellowship, Ukponmwan completed his internal medicine residency at Michigan State University, where he also served as a clinical faculty member, teaching medical students at the bedside. His background goes beyond clinical medicine. He holds a master’s degree in public health with a focus on epidemiology, the study of how diseases affect populations, and has spent years as a clinical researcher investigating how conditions like kidney disease, heart disease, and diabetes interact and progress. That broader perspective shapes how he thinks about patients, not just as individuals with a diagnosis, but as people living in communities where access, prevention, and long-term management all matter.
Ukponmwan has volunteered his time throughout his career to provide free medical care to patients who could not otherwise afford it, including work at free clinics in Michigan and providing care to people living with HIV in Houston. He also participated in relief efforts following Hurricane Harvey. That record of service speaks to the kind of physician he is, one who sees medicine as a calling and not just a profession.
Outside of the clinic, Ukponmwan is an avid reader with wide-ranging interests spanning medicine, politics, travel, finance, and the arts. He is also an enthusiastic traveler with a deep appreciation for learning about new cultures and communities.
“Dr. Ukponmwan brings something special to this team,” Ron Peterson, President and CEO of Baxter Health, said. “His clinical training, his research background, and his years of service to underserved patients all point to a physician who genuinely cares about people. Our kidney patients and their families are going to be in very good hands.”
