2009 Induction Ceremony, Awards Presentation and Reception
The University of Toledo - Health Science Campus
Atrium, Center for Creative Education
March 28, 2009
7:30 - 9:30 p.m.
2009 Recipients:
Bruce C. Steffes, MD, MBA, FACS, FWACS
CEO, Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons
From Fayetteville, North Carolina to the farthest reaches of human existence, Dr.
Bruce Steffes is truly on a medical mission.
It’s a never-ending mission that started more than a decade ago, when a self-described
“personal and spiritual crisis” changed Dr. Steffes’ view of life’s importance and
sent him in pursuit of a bounty more significant than financial success.
Since then, Dr. Steffes has spent at least six months in each of a dozen or more countries. As a volunteer physician and general surgeon in Haiti, Belize, Guatemala, Brazil, Kenya, Uganda, Togo, Zambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola, Papua New Guinea, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, Dr. Steffes has worked tirelessly to serve, protect and improve the quality of life for countless citizens in the developing world.
Returning just this week from a two-month trip to Kenya, Zimbabwe, Thailand and the ship Africa Mercy off the coast of Benin, Dr. Steffes is unrelenting in his quest to expand the reach of modern health care.
In his current role as the Chief Executive Officer of the Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons, Dr. Steffes is doing just that. Using rural mission hospitals in Africa, he is helping to train African physicians to become surgeons, as he says, “in Africa, for Africa and for a lifetime.”
His medical career started at the University of Michigan College of Medicine. He then trained in general surgery at The University of Florida. When in the United States during breaks from his mission work, Steffes is the Surgeon-in-Residence at Methodist University Physician Assistant Program where he teaches anatomy, physiology and general surgery. He holds an assistant professorship in surgery from Loma Linda University and guest lectures at the West Virginia University Clinical Tropical Medicine and Parasitology Training Course.
In an effort to help rally attention and interest in the work of medical missionaries, Dr. Steffes speaks to church congregations, service groups and missionary conferences around the United States. He has also written two books on the subject, Handbook for Short Term Medical Missionaries published in 2002 and Medical Missions: Get Ready, Get Set, GO! published just this month.
Later this year Dr. Steffes will travel back to Togo to work in a hospital there and fly to Cameroon to continue his work of training the next generation of medical missionaries.
John P. Howe III, MD
CEO, Project HOPE
Dr. John P. Howe III is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Project HOPE, a medical missionary organization started in 1958 with the help of President Dwight Eisenhower, a couple hundred bucks and the need to bring modern health care to the Third World.
At its inception, Project HOPE consisted of a refitted U.S. Navy hospital ship. The S.S. Hope, as it was called, would take American doctors, nurses and technologists around the world and afford them the opportunity to share their skills and knowledge with the people of developing nations.
Though the S.S. HOPE was retired in 1974, the land-based initiatives of the organization are stronger than ever. With Dr. Howe at the helm, Project HOPE’s programs span more than 90 countries and focus on a variety of health- related fields.
In decreasing exposure to infectious disease by preventing its spread and promoting its proper treatment, Dr. Howe is giving people the tools they need to create self-sufficient healthcare systems. He’s helping people help themselves.
Dr. Howe started helping people after graduating from the Boston University School of Medicine. He served two years in the Army Medical Corps and later completed the Health Systems Management Program at Harvard Business School.
He serves as the Chair of the Harvard College Board of Overseers Committee at the Medical School and the School of Dental Medicine. This, combined with his history of becoming the founding President for the Texas Society for Biomedical Research, being a member and past chair of the American Medical ssociation’s Council on Scientific Affairs and being a past member of the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, has given Dr. Howe the connections indispensable to making Project HOPE a success.
These connections help train the staff necessary to operate hospitals and clinics, especially those targeted to the needs of children. These facilities provide a unique vehicle through which training resources can be focused, making the maximum contribution to the improvement of the health of children in developing nations.
They may no longer be physically located on the sea, but from South America to Africa, Asia and the Middle East, Dr. Howe and Project HOPE are continuing to ship medical knowledge and know-how across the world.
Jeffery E. Heck, MD
Founder and Executive Director, Shoulder to Shoulder
It was probably pretty easy for Dr. Jeffery, Heck to name the charitable organization he founded in 1996. Six years before its official launch, he stood face to face and shoulder to shoulder with the members of poor, rural communities in Honduras, providing them with much-needed healthcare services.
Now his Shoulder to Shoulder organization is a network of partnerships between nine academic health centers and nine in-need communities, seven in Honduras and two in Ecuador and Tanzania.
Dr. Heck’s interest in bringing modern health care to the Third World started a few years after he graduated from the Medical College of Ohio in 1979. Two trips to Kenya to relieve doctors covering a 200-bed hospital sent Dr. Heck on a mission to find, as he says, “a foothold where a long-term commitment could make a meaningful difference.”
In 1990, he found that foothold. A trip to Central America while he was a clinical associate professor at the University of Cincinnati brought the problems of Santa Lucia, Honduras, to his attention. The nearest doctor in Santa Lucia was five hours away, ten when it rained: an unacceptable distance for a community with high risk factors for infectious disease and malnutrition.
But thanks to Dr. Heck’s work and vision, these communities now have full-time medical and dental personnel. Dr. Heck and his organization also provide more than 2,500 children per day with clean water and food. They offer 165 scholarships to poor children to help advance their education and have enrolled 23 schools in a program that works to increase the self-esteem of young girls.
Currently a professor at the University of North Carolina, Dr. Heck holds the position of Director of Medical Education for Mission Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina where he is helping train the next generation of volunteers and surgeons in the field of international health.
Since the inception of Dr. Heck’s program, more than 3,000 doctors, residents and volunteers have stood side by side with needy communities in rural Honduras and around the world, helping to shoulder the burden of health care.
Lawrence V. Conway Distinguished Service Award
S. Amjad Hussain, MD
Professor Emeritus, The University of Toledo
Every year for the past 33 years, Dr. Amjad Hussain has volunteered his time at Khyber Medical College in Peshawar, Pakistan.
During these three decades of service, Dr. Hussain has been a Visiting Professor at five universities around the planet. From Pakistan to Libya, India and Kentucky, Dr. Hussain has traveled the world, spreading the knowledge necessary to advance modern healthcare practices.
Dr. Hussain has published 50 papers in American and international medical literature and has also invented two surgical devices.
He graduated with distinction from Khyber Medical College in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1962, and several years after completing his residency at Maumee Valley Hospital in Toledo, Dr. Hussain started his yearly volunteer visits to Pakistan.
In 1982, Dr. Hussain was appointed by the Government of Pakistan to serve on its Health Policy Panel where he helped to formulate a five-year health plan for the country.
He has also contributed his time to the Midwest Medical Mission, an organization that has been traveling to the Dominican Republic since 1974 to offer much-needed alternatives to expensive, low-quality health care. Midwest Medical Mission sends four teams, one per week during a month-long period, to the Dominican Republic, giving each team the chance to treat about 1,000 patients.
In addition to Dr. Hussain’s interest in medical missionary, he is also an explorer. He founded Team Indus, a group aimed at the exploration of the Indus River in Pakistan and Tibet. In 1996, his team became only the third team to reach the source of the Indus River in the Kailas mountain ranges.
Currently, Dr. Hussain is Professor Emeritus in Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at The University of Toledo College of Medicine. He also serves on the Board of Trustees for that university, the third largest in Ohio.