INMED National Healthcare Service Award
Many health care professionals within their own nations are sacrificing personal comfort in order to care for their neglected neighbors. The award recipients are role models in providing health care for their own people.
Barry Bacon, 2022 National Healthcare Service Award Recipient
The 2022 INMED National Healthcare Service Award recipient is Barry Bacon. After completing medical school and family medicine training, Dr. Bacon worked at a mission hospital in Malawi, southern Africa, and was medical director for 16 remote site clinics for 3 years. Upon returning to the US, he practiced and taught full-spectrum family medicine in rural northeast Washington. Dr. Bacon has continued to stay connected to global health, particularly through teaching physicians in Rwanda, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Malawi. His work also includes creating a peace initiative between two warring tribes in northern Kenya and working with the lost boys of South Sudan to create a medical school to transform health outcomes in that region of the world. In the United States, he especially loves working on health disparities in his local community in Washington state, especially on behalf of those afflicted by addiction, mental health, poverty, and homelessness. Most remarkable of these initiatives is Dr. Bacon’s work to establish Hope Street Project to alleviate homelessness in Colville, WA, and creating a business to employ homeless men to take uninhabited buildings and create beautiful living spaces.
Jordan Crawford, 2021 National Healthcare Service Award Recipient
The 2021 INMED National Healthcare Service Award recipient is Jordan Crawford, PA-C. Jordan is a graduate of the Kanakuk Institute and the University of Missouri-Kansas City Master of Medical Science Physician Assistant program, and the INMED Diploma in International Medicine & Public Health. Since 2018, he has served in family medical care at Hope Family Care Center in Kansas City’s urban core, located at 31st Street and Prospect Avenue. When asked about what personally motivates him to promote healthcare for marginalized people, Jordan replies, “My motivation comes directly from my faith in Jesus Christ and obedience to what I believe God calls all Christians to: serving the least of these as Christ did. This includes the orphans, the widows, the poor, the marginalized, and whoever our neighbor happens to be. This isn’t limited to socioeconomic class, but it is that class of individuals who are at greater risk for death, disease, injustice, and inequity.”
Glen Talboy, 2020 National Healthcare Service Award Recipient
The 2020 INMED National Healthcare Service Award recipient is Glenn Talboy. Professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine and Chairman of Surgery at Truman Medical Center, Dr. Talboy has been a tireless advocate for lower income citizens of the Kansas City metro area. In the realm of research, he has lead advances in breast cancer for Hispanic patients. In the field of resident physician education, he’s provided insight into the profound changes taking place with new work hour rules. And regarding the surgical profession as a whole, Dr. Talboy has addressed the problems of burn out and erosion of procedural privileges experienced by surgeons around the nation, which often result in a shortage of general surgeons, especially in rural areas.
Betsy Sutherland, 2018 National Healthcare Service Award Recipient
As an elementary school teacher, Betsy became absorbed over the tragedies surrounding human trafficking, including labor, sex and child trafficking. She carried these convictions into medical school at Saint Louis University, where her experience in education was quickly recognized by her peers within the anti-trafficking community. Betsy is connected with the Stop Human Trafficking Network where she leads small group, hands-on trafficking case simulations to help learners to rapidly recognize and respond to abusive situations. Watch for more advocacy and innovation from Betsy Sutherland in the next season of her life as a family physician in South Bend, Indiana.
Juli McGowan Boit, 2017 National Healthcare Service Award Recipient
Juli McGowan Boit lives a life of international compassion. This began with a month-long trip to Kenya in 2000 with her nursing school; one that filled her with a calling to serve the people in East Africa. “My eyes were opened to poverty in a new way, and not just the hard things about Africa, but also really beautiful things,” says Juli. In 2004, she moved to Kenya to work as a nurse practitioner, and in 2009 she founded Living Room Ministries – a place that offers dignity and whole person – physical, emotional, spiritual – care to those battling life-threatening illnesses like HIV/AIDS, and an alternative for the sick or dying who are ostracized by their communities and families.
Tom Kettler, 2016 INMED National Healthcare Service Award Recipient
Known to hundreds of patients in Stanley, Kansas, as a quality family physician, Dr. Kettler has remained unswerving in his commitment to Kansas City’s most needy populous: those residing in the urban core. There was once no primary care facility available in the immediate neighborhood – a particular obstacle for the numerous patients without transportation. After years of vision casting and overcoming financial challenges, in 2009 Dr. Kettler witnessed the formal opening of Hope Family Care Center at 3027 Prospect Ave. Says Kettler, “My Christian faith was primary in my pursuit of a medical career. I enjoy helping others and the challenge of solving problems. Medicine is a great field for life-long learning and service to others.”
Fred Loper, 2015 INMED National Healthcare Service Award Recipient
As a medical student at the University of Oklahoma, Fred Loper was recruited to help start Good Shepherd Clinic in Oklahoma City – a ministry launched after a homeless man had his wound stitched by a bartender in a local tavern because he had no where else to go for treatment. Following graduation, Dr. Loper proceeded to lead the Baptist Medical Dental Fellowship, facilitating healthcare in Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Ghana, and Cuba. Since 2012, Dr. Loper is again at the helm of Good Shepherd Clinic, providing medical and dental care through an exceptional practice that provides prevention, wellness and sick care to low-income, uninsured people throughout central Oklahoma.
Oscar Paulo, 2014 INMED National Healthcare Service Award Recipient
Oscar Paulo is a physician in his home nation of Angola, located in southern Africa. Following a forty-year civil war, Angola has the lowest health status on the entire continent. In 1989 in cooperation with the Angola Baptist Convention, Dr. Paulo founded a humble medical clinic caring for the poor in the suburbs of Luanda, Angola’s capital city. Recognizing the shortage of trained healthcare personnel in the northeast region of Angola, Dr. Paulo also established a scholarship program to select and train Angolan medical students, personally mentoring them in professional, spiritual, and personal life skills for the unique challenges of this proud nation.
Jeremy Kirchoff, 2012 INMED National Healthcare Service Award Recipient
As a medical student at Kansas University Medical Center Dr. Kirchoff enrolled in the INMED International Medicine Certificate program, studying at the Baptist Medical Center in northern Ghana, West Africa. Today Dr Kirchhoff is the first full-time physician at the new Hope Family Care Center, located in Kansas City’s most vulnerable and underserved neighborhood. Dr. Kirchoff explains, “My experience in Ghana contributed immensely to my desire to care for underserved people wherever they are located. Parallel to Ghana, my practice in Kansas City today utilizes the cross-cultural skills and advanced disease management I learned in Africa.” Dr Kirchoff offers a challenge: “Are you interested in this kind of career? Then find role models who are living the way you want to live. Follow their example.”
John Wilson, 2011 INMED National Service Award Recipient
John Wilson, MBA, PMP, a native Kenyan, is on the business faculty of Park University and is founder of Hope Kenya International – a not-for-profit organization that collaborates with American institutions to assist African families in breaking the pervasive cycle of poverty. Under his leadership, Hope Kenya provides preschool education, small enterprise development, and basic outpatient medical care – all with an emphasis on sustainability. Mr. Wilson explains, “We revere God by walking alongside people, empowering them to be accountable to self, to community, and to Him.”
Rick Donlon, 2010 INMED National Service Award Recipient
Dr. Donlon is an internal medicine and pediatrics physician. In 1995, he and three classmates opened Christ Community Health Services, a primary-care health center in Memphis’ most under-served neighborhood. Since then, CCHS has grown to five locations, providing over 95,000 patient visits and delivering 800 babies each year. Dr. Donlon is a role model who uses his tremendous experience both to provide healthcare for the forgotten and to motivate others in this pursuit, including his organizing efforts in formation of the influentual Christian Community Health Foundation.
John Zhangpeng, 2009 INMED National Service Award Recipient
Dr. Zhangpeng is a 1999 graduate of the Shenyang Medical College in northeastern China. In 2002 he joined forces with Dr. Peter Burgos in founding Liaoning International General Health Trainers, better know by the acronym “LIGHT.” Under Dr. Zhangpeng’s leadership, LIGHT has since become one of the largest charitable organizations in China, providing innovative health care service for orphans and for the elderly – individuals who are often beyond the fringes of medical care. In guiding this organization, Dr. Pengzhang draws upon his deep fund of medical, administrative and linguistic skills, and has become an exemplary humanitarian among his fellow Chinese.
