A Toledo couple who started a nonprofit that provides medical care to the poor in Guatemala will be honored today by the University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences’ Medical Missions Hall of Fame.
Drs. Anne and Randall Ruch will receive the Lawrence V. Conway Distinguished Lifetime Service Award during the Hall of Fame induction ceremony. An Israeli hospital and two doctors will be inducted, while Dr. David Grossman, former health commissioner of the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department, will receive the UT College of Medicine and Life Sciences Alumni Community Award
Rabbi Alan Sokobin, rabbi emeritus of Temple Shomer Emunim in Sylvania, said the inductees were selected because of their moral compassion, conviction, and willingness to care for others.
“This program is intended to say to the larger community that as human beings, we have an obligation to all human beings,” he said.
Dr. Anne Ruch is an obstetrician/gynecologist with ProMedica and executive director of Compassion Health Toledo, while her husband is a UT associate professor of biochemistry and cancer biology. Their nonprofit, SewHope, provides health care and other services to the poor in Guatemala, a country where the Ruchs have gone on mission trips since 1998.
Dr. Grossman graduated in 1974 from the former Medical College of Ohio, and worked at Toledo and St. Vincent hospitals. He started working for the Toledo Board of Health in 1989, and led the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department from 2000 until 2016.
Among the inductees is the Galilee Medical Center in northern Israel near the Syrian border, which has served thousands of Syrians wounded in war. They are treated secretly, Rabbi Sokobin said, so that the wounded do not face repercussions back in Syria for seeking aid from Israelis.
The head of the surgical department and the chief surgical nurse will be at UT today for the induction ceremony.
Also being inducted is Dr. Donald Mullen, who has worked as a medical missionary for more than 30 years. A graduate of the Citadel with a medical degree from Duke University, he spent 20 years as a cardiovascular surgeon before beginning work with the Presbyterian Church, Samaritans Purse Intentional relief, the Christian Medical and Dental Association, and the Philadelphia International Foundation.
He received a master of divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary and is an ordained priest. He has worked as a doctor in three war zones.
Joining him as an inductee is Dr. Vadrevu Raju, who founded the Eye Foundation of America, which conducts traveling eye camps and also builds hospitals, which have served more than 2 million and saved the vision of more than 300,000 in 21 countries.
Dr. Raju received his medical degree from Andhra University in Visakhapatnam, India. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and the American College of Surgeons, and teaches and works in West Virginia.
The induction ceremony will be at 7 p.m. in Room 1000 of the Collier Building on the Health Science Campus. A symposium titled “Together, We Are the Change in Medicine” will be from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. today in the Health Education Building, Room 110, with Dr. Mullen, Dr. Raju, and Drs. Anne and Randall Ruch as speakers.
Contact Nolan Rosenkrans at: nrosenkrans@theblade.com or 419-724-6086, or on Twitter @NolanRosenkrans.
First Published April 1, 2017, 4:00 a.m.
