05-SEP-B-7
MY NOMINATIONS OF RICK HODES,
AND
IN A LETTER TO LARRY CONWAY AND
RESPONSES FROM EACH NOMINEE AND PRESIDENT OF MMHOF
TENA YESTELING GLENN,
MANY THANKS FOR YOUR KIND WORDS!
MY HOUSEHOLD IS EXPANDING,
I HAVE 2 BOYS AT HOME WHO HAVE EACH BEEN
AMPUTATED FOR OSTEOSARCOMA WHO HAVE
JUST FINISHED 6 CYCLES OF CISPLATIN +
ADRIAMYCIN IN TIME TO
BEST WISHES,
RICK
IN
>From: "Glenn Geelhoed"
<msdgwg@gwumc.edu>
>To: <CLVC8@aol.com>
>CC: <rwcroskery@fuse.net>
>Subject: Re: Medical Mission
Hall of Fame
>Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2005 10:55:01
-0400
>
>Dear Larry:
>
>Thank you for your patience!
>
>I have returned from
>have now been told I might stand
by for whatever may come from Hurricane
>Rita!
>
>I will try to get a copy of the
>you had referred to and I had
also heard from someone else about the
>Bulletin of the
>MMHOF recognition. If I can find these references to the MMHOF I
will
>package them for your
files. Had you completed the DVD of the
program
>from February?
I would be interested in a copy to share and thought I
>would carry one down to
>Farmer.
>
>I had received your letter and
have given it great thought.
>
>Most of my life I have heard of
Christian missionaries who have given
>most of their lives to service
on very distant peoples under austere
>circumstances.
But I have also worked closely with those of other
>faiths or no professed
convictions at all except the relief of suffering
>humanity.
I would immediately refer to you the list of those
>missionaries sent by established
organizations with whom I have worked
>had I not thought about this as
long as I had in the course of these
>past weeks of my mixing with
many volunteers and agencies in the Gulf
>Coast. I thought of the many I have known who have
been sent out by
>mission agencies and those whose
motives and means seem to be
>independent reflecting the
personal and direct motivation I believe that
>the MMHOF seeks to recognize. I
will therefore suggest to you a couple
>of names that were not on my
earlier list of those with whom I have had
>long
acquaintance or many years of collaboration.
>
>Dr. Jill Seaman is from a rural
state,
>works in the Alaska Indian
Health Service for part of each year to
>finance her "
>the
>decimated by Kala
Azar, a dreaded parasitic condition also known as
>"visceral
leishmaniasis."
She has worked tirelessly in the southern
>
>several weeks earlier this year
in which we set up surgical clinics and
>trained successors along the
>groups, who have been victims,
rather than the beneficiaries, of their
>own Sudanese
government and its policies of hostility toward them.
Jill
>has already been recognized for
her efforts as I had noted in an article
>in Newsweek magazine over a year
ago in which she was declared one of
>the
"Heroes of Medicine." She is still
actively pursuing her general
>medical clinics in Old Fangak where I had last parted with her, as she
>continues pioneering work, not
only in the Kala Azar about
which she is
>an acknowledged expert among
very few on earth today who care about such
>a remote lethal disorder, but
also with Tb, polio, trachoma and a litany
>of the
diseases of poverty.
>
>Dr. Rick Hodes
is an internist from Johns Hopkins and is representing
>the Jewish Distribution Fund in
the city of
>worked for over a decade,
directing the Blue Nile Clinic, assisting in
>the Mother Theresa Shelter for
the Poor and Dying, and helping out at
>the
>University, as well as in
peripheral clinics in
>within
>amazed at his dedication and
continued resourcefulness. One of many
>things you might know about him
is that he has adopted a whole "Brady
>Bunch" of boys, principally
those with severe cardiac or skeletal
>problems such as Pott's Disease or scoliosis of the
spine, who would be
>required to have expensive and
extensive surgical therapy to have a
>chance at
normal lives. Rick has assisted many Ethiopian patients to
>get curative care, but those
with "big ticket" treatments required, he
>has adopted to bring them back
to the
>policy to
secure the needed surgical treatments. I have been
not only a
>co-worker with him in
>and participated in the life of
the unusual "family" there. He
has been
>seen recently on US TV when he
had brought back a yong man named
>Makonnen
for whom I had sought charitable care with a severe case of
>scoliosis that would require an
operation and extended period of
>treatment that was not in the
budget of several institutions of the kind
>that I had approached. Rick proceeded to add him to his rather
extended
>family and the TV spot was of
the followup of Makonnen's
care while
>brought to
>is a remarkable fellow,
personally and professionally.
>
>I was about to suggest an
Islamic colleague who represents the best of
>the Koranic
spirit of Zakat, but will limit my suggestions to two
at
>this time.
I could also furnish a myriad of photos to support my
>nominations of these two
dedicated physicians from the period that I
>have worked with them and hope
to return to collaborate again.
>
>I have not forgotten my many
Christian missionary friends, and I had
>been planning to offer their
names first--and may subsequently as my
>association with MMHOF continues
to grow. But the variety of
>backgrounds and means of
applying missionary medical skill has exhibited
>a remarkable similarity of
motivation among the others with whom I have
>worked within the recent months, and I wanted to acknowledge both those
>differences and the common
"mission motivation" among each of us who
>continue to be called to this
work. They would agree that these
efforts
>have a higher yield of rewarding
joy than most other pursuits within the
>healing professions--still,
among all others, the best thing we can do
>to show we care enough to help
the other planetary citizens who are not
>like us--they are us.
>
>Yours truly,
>
>Glenn W. Geelhoed
>
>
>
> >>> <CLVC8@aol.com> 9/16/2005 3:59 PM >>>
>Dear Glenn:
>
>Please review the attached
letters.
>
>Thank you,
>
>
Hi Glenn!
Thanks for everything. We used several of your pictures in our thankyou letter - including one of you!
I will try to get it to you somehow!
Plans for this year are on hold
until Fr. Antonio and I figure out what is possible. I do not know what is exactly happening
now but will write soon!
Glenn, best wishes with all your
work, I truly hope hurrican Rita (is that the name?)
does not give you any patients... Amid the saddness from the US I have heard so many stories of a
change in mood in the US prioritizing wanting to make us a country that cares about all
its people, about equity etc - the first
step to recognizing we are all people - all over the world.
Take care,
Jill
Dear Glenn: It is surely good to
hear from you! You've set a high standard
for recognition by the Medical Mission
Hall of Fame Foundation. Consequently,
I value your recommendations very
highly. Please send me the addresses of
Dr. Jill Seaman
and Rick Hodes. I would like
to get in touch with
them as they
seem to be the kind of medical
missionaries that the Foundation most
appropriately should be honoring. We would also like to have any photos that you
might have for these two candidates. You mentioned an Islamic colleague. I
would like to hear more about him. The Walls of the
Medical Mission Hall of
Fame are wide enough that all outstanding
medical missionaries of all spiritual
orientations
and backgrounds are worthy of consideration. So
keep up your
good efforts
and recommendations! We're in the
process of doing a new
web site and would
like to have an
expanded list of future medical
missions. If you would be so kind- as to
send us a list of your future missions
(dates, destinations, person in charge,
length of mission and other pertinent
details) we would deeply appreciate it.
Also any information that you may have
on other medical missions scheduled by
others for 2006 would enable those
med and non-med students interested in
going on a medical mission to schedule
their mission trips more effectively. We can (and do) provide financial
assistance to cover a part of transportation
expenses. So if you have any potential
participants who need help, please
let me know. We've recently instituted
a Student Humanitarian of the Year
Scholarship
Program at the
extending this program to other Med Schools, e.g, GWUMC. You will be interested
in knowing that for
the first time in history we will be welcoming two very
worthy recipients of the Nursing profession
into the Medical Mission Hall of
Fame. I believe that it is most
appropriate that we do so. I deeply
appreciate your operating philosophy regarding the role of
"mission orientation" in
encouraging our compatriots to willingly
and enthusiastically serve our fellow
brothers and sisters who are not like
us--they are us in a global sense.
Keep up the good work!
With kindest personal regards,
Larry Conway
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