2011 Induction Ceremony, Awards Presentation and Reception
The University of Toledo - Health Science Campus
Howard L. Collier Building and
Atrium, Center for Creative Education
April 9, 2011
6 – 8 pm
2011 Recipients:
Sania Nishtar, SI, FRCP, PhD
Founder, Heartfile, Islamabad, Pakistan
Pakistan’s first female cardiologist, Dr. Sania Nishtar founded Heartfile, the most powerful health policy voice and catalyst for health reform in that country which is recognized as model for replication in other developing nations.
Founded in 1998, Heartfile is a non-governmental organizational think tank. In just four years after its inception, Heartfile led the creation of Pakistan’s National Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Health in that country.
Heartfile’s roots can be traced to a simple question. “When I stood in the cath lab, I often wondered why we were performing coronary angiographies with new catheters in patients who could pay and then washing the same catheters and using them for people who couldn’t pay,” said Dr. Nishtar in a 2007 interview with James Butcher. “And in those days I didn’t know much about policy, or about charity or regulations. The only thing I knew was that I wanted to find a wider solution, a more sustainable solution. I had no interest in making money or in talking to rich people for hours about their hypertension. I was only interested in helping the underprivileged and making a broader based impact.”
The child of a physician father, Sania earned her medical degree from Khyber Medical College – Peshawar in 1986. After getting married and having children, she earned a PhD at Kings College in London.
Heartfile began with a desire to raise public awareness about heart disease. Her organization now encompasses all aspects of health-care policy while retaining its original moniker.
Internationally, Dr. Nishtar’s scope of work has several dimensions. She is a member of many Expert Working Groups and Task Forces of the World Health Organization and is currently a member of the board of the International Union for Health Promotion and the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research. She is also a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council, the Clinton Global Initiative, the Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global Health and many other international initiatives.
An advisor to the World Health Organization on numerous occasions, Dr. Nishtar has published over 100 journal articles and is the author of eight books and book chapters. Her recent book, Choked Pipes, was considered as a landmark publication by the United Nations. The impact of Pipes has been two-fold. It argues for a radical overhaul of Pakistan’s poorly performing health systems and charts a pathway to reform. Globally, it analytically links health systems improvements to pro-poor macro-economic reforms, institutional re-engineering and adequate resourcing of the public sector while strategically using technology and creatively harnessing of the private sector.
She has been honored by the government of Pakistan with the Star of Distinction, one of its highest civilian awards, for her meritorious services and is a regular op-ed columnist for The News, a daily newspaper with the largest circulation in Pakistan.
Edgar Rodas, MD, FACS and Dolores Reinbach Rodas
Founders, The Cinterandes Foundation, Cuenca, Ecuador
Dr. Edgar and Mrs. Dolores Reinbach Rodas are founders of the Cinterandes Foundation, a visionary mobile hospital and rural health care project based in Ecuador. Together, they have developed programs that focus on clean water, nutrition and preventative education for those in the most remote areas of that country.
Born in Cuenca, Ecuador, Edgar graduated from the University of Cuenca’s Medical School in 1961. He completed a fellowship in general surgery at the Herbert Jerome Research Foundation in Miami Beach, Florida, and performed his surgical residencies aboard the SS Hope and at Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC. The Hollywood, Florida-born Dolores met Edgar while she was a student in the Mount Sinai Hospital School of Nursing in Miami Beach.
Their Cinterandes Foundation was founded in 1994 to aid the some five million Ecaudorians that live in rural areas with limited access to health care. The cultural make-up of that country is as varied as its terrain. Seventeen ethnic groups reside in Ecuador, speaking at least ten different languages. In the Andean Region of Ecaudor alone, communities are spread from sea level to as high as 13,000 feet above that water mark.
So that they could quickly reach the most remote areas to serve the impoverished residents, the couple developed a surgical mobile hospital. A self-contained operating room on wheels, it has enabled Edgar and other physicians to perform complex surgeries in regions that have little or no medical facilities. So successful is their truck, that Edgar and Dolores added a surgical boat that reaches into the villages located in the deepest parts of the Amazon jungle.
Edgar estimates that Cinterandes has performed more than 5,000 surgeries and has never lost a patient. Yet in order to really make a difference, the couple knew that Cinterandes needed to focus on more than just reactionary surgeries. Today, Cinterandes’ doctors and nurses promote fact-based Western health care in areas that have known only traditional treatments in order to emphasize health education, fight malnutrition and provide immunizations.
Edgar’s honors include being named recipient of the Surgical Humanitarian Award by the American College of Surgeons in 2009, the Order of the Great Cross by the Ecuadorian Government in 2002 and the Award to the Scientific Merit by the Ministry of Health of Ecuador in 2004. He also served as Minister of Public Health of Ecuador from 1998 to 2000. A professor of English at the University of Cuenca since 1982, Dolores has also served as a professor of Postgraduate Surgical Residency at that institution.
George Varghese, MBBS and Sheila Varghese, MBBS
Lady Willingdon Hospital, Manali, India
A love of Jesus Christ and a desire to help others has guided Drs. George and Sheila Varghese for more than 30 years. Residents of some of the most remote areas of the Himalayas have been aided by these two who have devoted their lives to performing major surgeries and training primary health care workers and teachers to improve the human condition.
George, affectionately known as Laji, was born in the southern-most part of India. Inspired by his aunt, Dr. Mary Mathew, to pursue medical studies, he entered Christian Medical College – Ludhiana where he earned his MBBS. At CMC, he met Ugandan-born Sheila.
Since 1979, the pair has worked at Lady Willingdon Hospital in Manali, India; he as a medical superintendent and surgeon, she as a pediatrician and obstetrician. With their work, Lady Willingdon has grown from a dying 22-bed facility with no funds to a 50-bed hospital with all of the basic facilities needed to provide adequate health care to the people of Himachal Pradesh. A staff which numbered just 12 at the start has grown to 90 under their leadership while new buildings and equipment have been added. Medical students from around the world now come to Lady Willingdon for exposure and training.
With the growth of their hospital came the realization that community health education was critical to the people of their region. Immunization, health education counseling, nutrition and training of health care workers became a priority, as the pair developed the phrase, ‘My health, my responsibility,’ to be shared with their neighbors.
The success of the hospital and the need for education led Laji and Shelia to create Day Star School in Manali in 1985. What began with nine children has grown to 500 pupils and a high school. In 2008, they started a model preschool which is designed to not only serve young children but also train teachers who will duplicate the model in villages. Health education is a major focus for the students - the pair believe in the total well-being of health care rather than the fragmentation of medicine.
In the 1990’s the pair began to visit the most inaccessible parts of the Himalayas, offering medical and surgical help. Since then, they have established three smaller clinics in those hard to reach areas. They also started a hostel for children in need in Manali in 1998.
Alone, Laji has performed over 20,000 major and minor surgeries in all specialties and performed thousands of procedures while Shelia has not only worked with children and mothers but also treated common infectious diseases like tuberculosis, typhoid, hepatitis and diarrheas.
Their faith also led them to head a small church in Manali for many years in the absence of a pastor. What began with a handful of believers has now grown to some 800 members. Today there is an indigenous Kului and Laholi church worshiping God in their language for the first time ever.
Recently, Laji and Shelia turned the day-to-day operations of Lady Willingdon over to others. They still direct the hospital’s community care area but are spending more of their time serving those in the remote areas of India, an initiative that is being supported by the government. Regardless of where they may be, these physicians remain committed to God and the well-being of others.
Lawrence V. Conway Distinguished Service Award
Daniel J. Saevig, MBA
Associate Vice President for Alumni Relations at the University of Toledo and Executive Director of the UToledo Alumni Association
Dan received a Bachelor of Arts degree in communication and a Master of Business Administration degree from UT in 1984 and 1989, respectively.
He served as executive director of the UT Alumni Association from 1993 to 1999 and as assistant director from 1990 to 1993. He left the University in 1999 to become Executive Vice President for the Home Builders Association of Greater Toledo. Dan returned to UT in 2002 as Associate Vice President of Alumni Relations. In July, 2006, the University of Toledo and the former Medical University of Ohio merged to create the new University of Toledo. Dan oversees all alumni relations activities for the new entity, totaling more than 109,000 addressable alumni.
In addition to the university, Dan has worked as a sports reporter/anchor for WTVG-TV and WNWO-TV and as a part-time sports writer for The Blade.
A past president of the Downtown Coaches Association, Dan has also served as on the board of trustees for the Toledo Speech and Hearing Center and the Oregonian Club. He co-chaired the development of the Academic Strategic Plan for Oregon City Schools in 2010.
In addition to his extensive and active involvement in community and University of Toledo activities, Dan has been instrumental in promoting the extensive national and international affairs and programs of the Medical Mission Hall of Fame. Since its creation in 1999, Dan has served voluntarily as co-manager and co-director of multifaceted activities in the operations of the Medical Mission Hall of Fame. Whatever the task which needed to be performed, whatever the job which needed to be done, whatever the deadline which needed to be met, Dan was always there – with an engaging smile and an enthusiastic and positive attitude which inspired others to join him in fulfillment of the humanitarian mission of the Medical Mission Hall of Fame. Without his outstanding commitment, the dominant role of the Medical Mission Hall of Fame in the world would have been substantially diminished. All of his many notable and valued contributions to the Medical Mission Hall of Fame were over and above his outstanding efforts he has made to the Alumni Association of the University of Toledo.
The Medical Mission Hall of Fame owes a profound and deep debt of gratitude to Dan for his exemplary efforts to improve the human condition of his fellow men substantially and significantly beyond the Ohio regional area.
Dan lives in Oregon with wife, Dianne, and 16-year-old daughter, Danielle. Dan and Dianne have endowed two scholarships at UT – the Louise Bohm Memorial Scholarship in honor of Dan’s grandmother and the Gene and Donna Saevig Medical Mission Scholarship in honor of his parents. The Saevig Medical Mission Scholarship will be awarded for the first time in 2012 to a student in the College of Medicine and Life Sciences in recognition of commitment to medical missionary work.