INMED Humanitarian Crisis Response Award

Ted Higgins, 2022 Humanitarian Crisis Response Award Recipient

The 2022 Humanitarian Crisis Response Award recipient is Ted Higgins. Dr. Higgins is a surgeon who has devoted his career to his patients, and teaching surgery in third world countries, in particular Haiti. He was introduced to third world surgery as a fourth-year surgical resident at Yale when he and his wife spent 3 months in Haiti operating at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital. After Ted finished his vascular surgery fellowship at Baylor, his family moved to Kansas City, his wife’s hometown. Soon Ted was making yearly surgical mission trips with his church to the Dominican Republic helping train their surgeon in general, laparoscopic, and vascular surgical techniques. This lasted until 2010, when the catastrophic Haitian earthquake occurred, and Ted returned to Haiti. He again started working with Haitian surgical residents from the General Hospital in Port Au Prince. The tiny delivery room, though, used for surgery was inadequate, particularly for teaching, so the Higgins Brothers Surgicenter for Hope was constructed in 2016. This contained 2 major operating rooms for teaching and performing surgeries. He soon hired several talented Haitian surgeons he helped train to avoid their leaving Haiti. They established a surgical team and set up a 24/7 trauma and emergency facility that now performs general, vascular, urology, obstetrics, and gynecology procedures. A nearby medical clinic was soon incorporated in to the Surgicenter that included medical, pediatric, HIV, maternity, and dental patients. When Hurricane Matthew struck Haiti in 2016 and Hurricane Laura in 2020, the Surgicenter provided not only emergency medical care but also shelter, food, and water for hundreds of local residents. Even amid the Covid pandemic, in roughly 19,000 patients were cared for at the Surgicenter and clinics in 2021.

Charles Inboriboon, 2020 Humanitarian Crisis Response Award Recipient

The 2020 INMED Humanitarian Crisis Response Award recipient is Charles Inboriboon. He completed a University of Rochester International Medicine Fellowship and was a Fulbright Scholar Award Thailand. Today, Dr Inboriboon is an Associate Professor at the  University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine and Associate Residency Program Director for Emergency Medicine at Truman Medical Center. Dr. Inboriboon leads the international emergency medicine tract which provides observerships for emergency medicine physicians from Thailand, and prepares and sends US emergency medicine resident physicians to train and serve in other nations. He has collaborated to develop emergency medicine services in Laos, and to increase emergency medicine residency training capability at Chiang Mai University in Thailand. Dr. Inboriboon himself continues his own service in nations including Thailand, India, Haiti, Kosovo, and Nicaragua.

Haitian Christian Mission, 2017 Humanitarian Crisis Response Award Recipient

On the morning of October 4, 2016, Hurricane Matthew slammed into Haiti with winds of 145 miles per hour – the first Category 4 storm to strike Haiti since 1964. Haitian Christian Mission’s Hopital Christ Pour Tous opened in 1981, was already in preparation mode. Immediately following the storm, Edwens Prophete, HCM CEO, and Angie Schuber, Chief Development Officer, made a rapid assessment of emergency needs. Clean water sources were flooded, and so a new well was dug and medical services for anticipated cholera treatment were implemented. Meanwhile, HCM’s ongoing CDC-recognized HIV care clinics, and HCM’s peanut butter nutritional assistance were continued. Through it all, medical director Dr. Deiunord prayed with his patients and reminded the entire Haitian staff, “Why we do what we do.”

Richard Randolph, 2016 INMED Humanitarian Crisis Response Award Recipient

Dr. Randolph is a family physician from the Kansas City area who first distinguished himself as a West Point Military Academy graduate, adding credentials including the INMED Professional Certificate in International Medicine & Public Health and appointed Medical Officer for Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg. In 2015 Dr. Randolph became Chief Medical Officer for Heart to Heart International, and immediately shipped out to Liberia. On location at the Tappita Ebola Treatment Unit he served afflicted people for six months – just one of his extended deployments since 1993 providing healthcare in seven different nations. Today he diligently applies his hard-won insight through scaling up preparedness capability among hundreds of dedicated disaster responders.

Hilarie Cranmer, 2015 INMED Humanitarian Crisis Response Award Recipient

Dr. Cranmer is a physician in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Director of their Global Disaster Response unit. She has served in post-conflict Kosovo, tsunami-affected Indonesia and Sri Lanka, hurricane-impacted Louisiana, earthquake-devastated Haiti and Arab-spring affected Tunisia. With the 2014 emergence of Ebola, Dr. Cranmer was appointed Technical Advisor for Ebola Response for the International Medical Corps, providing high-level training for in-country health care workers, and for coordinating direct patient care in the affected countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. Throughout, Dr. Cranmer uses her experience in disaster response to help prepare leaders in the fields of emergency medicine and humanitarian crises.

Baptist Global Response, 2014 INMED Humanitarian Crisis Response Award Recipient

Organized in 2006, Baptist Global Response connects people who care with people in need – those suffering from acute problems like disasters, wars, and epidemics, as well as chronic ones including poverty, hunger, and poor health. Their more recent projects sites include South Sudan where ongoing conflict created tens of thousands of refugees, and BGR is providing safe drinking water, drilling boreholes, and providing thousands of families with water storage containers. BGR is also active in Syrian Crisis, where those fleeing the escalating violence arrive in surrounding countries with no provisions. BGR is providing food parcels and hygiene kits to these families in need.

Heart to Heart International, 2013 INMED Humanitarian Crisis Response Award Recipient

Throughout its 21-year history, Heart to Heart International has been a humanitarian medical aid and disaster relief organization that strives to connect people and resources. In the past year alone, Heart to Heart International has responded to multiple crises – from tornados in the U.S. heartland; to hurricanes Isaac & Sandy that struck both Haiti and the U.S. They have delivered Care Kits to those in the Philippines devastated by Typhoon Bopha; and lead anti-Cholera efforts in the remote mountains of Haiti. Since 1991 Heart to Heart International has delivered medical aid and relief supplies worth more than $1-Billion to afflicted people in more than 150 countries.

Emmanuel Hospital Association, 2012 INMED Humanitarian Crisis Response Award Recipient

Emmanuel Hospital Association was founded in 1970 as an indigenous Christian health and development agency serving the people of North India. Since then EHA has grown to a network of twenty-one hospitals, thirty-three community health center, and special programs in community development and HIV care. EHA also describe yourself essay hosts an active Disaster Management & Mitigation Unit (DMMU), which provided emergency assistance in the wake of the 2005 Indian Ocean Tsunami. More recently the EHA Disaster Unit has been responding to massive flooding within India, marooning entire villages for weeks at a time. EHA assistance includes provision of emergency temporary shelters, safe drinking water, sanitation support, cooked meals, medical care, epidemic control, and recovery counseling – all in coordination with Indian authorities to avoid duplication of relief supports and ensuring fair distribution of relief services. Receiving the award on behalf of EHA is Dr. Howard Searle, a veteran of thirteen years service with EHA in India and today Director of EHA’s United States affiliate.