Grantees: Dr. Michelle Yates and Dr. Kavi Simpson Grant Amount: $30,000 Purpose of Grant: Provide Living Expenses for long term volunteer work in Soddo, Ethiopia Brief Description: Drs. Yate and Simpson, both 2011 graduates of the Ventura Family Medicine Residency,  have been accepted as volunteer doctors at Soddo Christian Hospital in Soddo, Ethiopia, where they have committed to a minimum of 3 years service. They intend to build a Family Practice Residency at the hospital, training local doctors. Doctors Yates and Simpson will move to Ethiopia along with their spouses and children. VGHP is the first substantial donor of living expenses, and will provide anchor of funding from which to launch other fundraising...

VGHP is partnering with Dr. Robert Skankey, a retired Obstetrician who has delivered over 3500 babies in Ventura and Ojai, and his Nomad Foundation in the Sahara Desert. The Nomad Foundation has started a clinic in Tamesna, which is located on the annual migration route of the local Nomads. The clinic has a midwife training program. One in seven women in Niger has a lifetime risk of death during childbirth. Midwives trained by Dr. Skankey have assisted at more than one hundred births since November of 2011 with no maternal mortality and no infant mortality of a child born alive. They are reporting to Tamensa clinic staff that is developing the first health statistics ever for this remote region. While vigorous and very committed, Dr. Skankey is 82 years old, and VGHP has committed to help him pass the torch to younger Ventura doctors. VGHP will recruit and fund OB/GYN’s to continue the work of training midwives at the Tamesna clinic. Donations Coming...

VGHP is partnering with Dr. Carlos O’Bryan, a 2011 graduate of the Ventura Family Medicine Residency, to assess needs in providing care to underserved peoples in Maneadero, Mexico. Maneadero is an agricultural community five miles South of Ensenada in Baja California. There is a strong migrant farm worker population, many of them Mixteco people from Oaxaca, Mexico. Dr. O’Bryan intends to provide care to Mixtec peoples as his life’s work. He presently practices at Las Islas Family Medical Clinic, a county-run facility in Oxnard which provides care to a mostly immigrant, and strongly Mixteco, population. Over the next five to ten years he intends to transition more of his practice to Maneadero, where fewer healthcare options exist. As an interim step to full time practice in Maneadero, Dr. O’Bryan and VGHP are partnering to conduct medical outreach and perhaps provide clinical care on a part time basis. The first step is medical outreach; ad-hoc provision of care to gain exposure and assess the needs in the community. If medical outreach activities indicate a need and a culturally appropriate fit, the mid-term goal is to start a clinic that is open on weekends, with Dr. O’Bryan serving as medical director and with rotating volunteer doctors from the Ventura community. Note: our first VGHP-sponsored rotation will take place February 16-17. Dr. Carlos O’Bryan (MD), Dr. James Appel (MD), and Dr. John Chung (DDS) will provide care at Casa Hogar, an orphanage for abused children in Maneadero.   Donations Coming...

VGHP is partnering with Dr. Zachary Self, a 2012 graduate of the Ventura Family Medicine Residency, to support his startup Clinica Medica Cristiana in Santo Tomas La Union, Guatemala. Santo Tomas is a city of 25,000 residents, mainly indigenous Mayan, with four satellite towns of 5,000 residents each. Dr. Self’s goal is to “live out a life of solidarity with the marginalized indigenous population of Guatemala” and to “provide our patients with a quality of care comparable to that found in more developed countries”. Dr. Self will provide care without regard to political affiliation, religious belief, ethnic identity, or ability to pay. VGHP has committed a grant to Dr. Self to help him procure medical equipment required for his clinic. VGHP intends to support the clinic with short-term rotations of volunteer doctors from Ventura beginning in late 2014. Donations Coming...

VGHP is partnering with Dr. James Appel, a 2003 graduate of the Ventura Family Medicine Residency, to provide specialist care in Moundou, Chad. Moundou is the second largest city in Chad with a population of over 500,000 including hinterlands. There are less than 20 doctors in Moundou (compared to 679 doctors in the city of Ventura with a population of 106,000), and most of those are in private for-profit practice serving those few residents who can afford private care. Moundou Adventist Hospital provides care without regard to political affiliation, religious belief, ethnic identity, or ability to pay. Dr. Appel started the hospital in 2011 after spending eight years at Berea Adventist Hospital in Chad. When Dr. Appel started in Berea, the hospital had not had a doctor for 15 years. Now there are three doctors, and Dr. Appel has moved to the city of Moundou to start his newest venture. Dr. Appel has requested short term rotations of specialists in Ophthalmology, Dentistry, Gynecology, Orthopedics, Plastic Surgery, and Urology. Donations Coming...