Two Physicians Honored for Charitable Service with MedicalMissions.org Physician of the Year Awards
ALPHARETTA, Ga., April 22, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- LocumTenens.com announced today that Dr. Elizabeth Drum, a board-certified anesthesiologist from Philadelphia and Dr. Kris Johnson, a family practice physician from Denver, have been selected as the third annual MedicalMissions.org Physicians of the Year for international and domestic service, respectively.
More than 150 physicians were nominated for the annual awards program that honors physicians who donate their time to help underserved people in the United States and abroad gain access to critically-needed healthcare services. As part of the award, LocumTenens.com will donate to the Anesthesia Society of America (ASA) Charity Fund on behalf of Dr. Drum and to ACS Community LIFT on behalf of Dr. Johnson.
Dr. Elizabeth Drum is board certified in Anesthesiology and Pediatric Anesthesiology by the American Board of Anesthesiology. She has participated in 23 total medical mission trips, including trips to Haiti, India, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. She has made 12 trips to Ethiopia, a country with less than a dozen anesthesiologists in practice. Her focus on these trips is to not only treat patients, but also to build a local network of care by instructing local providers on modern anesthesiology standards. Working with Cure International, Dr. Drum recruits other physicians and healthcare providers for trips, gathers needed medical supplies and raises funds to support the organization's mission work, regularly spending up to 10 hours per week organizing upcoming trips. As a member of the Global Humanitarian Outreach committee of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, Dr. Drum proposed and has since built a scholarship program through the Society that will enable U.S. anesthesiology residents to spend a month in Ethiopia working at the Cure International Hospital teaching local anesthesia providers. She is credentialed with the National Disaster Medical System, part of the Department of Health and Human Services of the U.S. government and serves on the Society for Pediatric Anesthesia Committee on International Education and Service. To learn more about the ASA Charity Fund and its scholarship for anesthesiology residents, please visit the website.
Kris Alan Johnson, a family practice physician, serves as a Medical Director for the Veterans Health Administration in Denver. His specialty at the VA is taking care of recently-discharged combat war veterans and their very specific, individual needs. He began volunteering with the ACS Community Lift mobile clinic in Denver in 2001. This program offers compassionate support to families in crisis and/or on the brink of homelessness. Since then, he's become a reliable weekly volunteer, donating time to perform skin cancer removals and other minor surgical procedures, as well as seeing patients every Tuesday evening after finishing his duties at the VA. In addition to seeing patients at the clinic, he has also personally purchased medications for patients who couldn't afford them and regularly passes out bus passes to ensure patients can make follow-up appointments. He has served as the Medical Director of the ACS clinic since 2004. "Dr. J", as he is known around the clinic, serves as a mentor to pre-med, medical and nursing students volunteering at the clinic. To ensure that ACS Community Lift patients have access to specialty care, he has personally recruited other specialists to volunteer and donate care. Every year, he underwrites the organization's annual 4th of July barbeque which feeds more than 150 underprivileged people. To learn more about ACS Community Lift, please visit the website.
"Every year, we receive hundreds of nominations for deserving doctors, but this year, Dr. Drum and Dr. Johnson stood out due to the many years of dedicated service they've given to their volunteer work," said R. Shane Jackson, president of LocumTenens.com. "Dr. Drum is a physician who has reorganized her entire career in order to spend more time serving in Africa, and Dr. Johnson plays a vital role in ensuring that Denver's uninsured and impoverished patients receive quality care at LIFT. These two physicians are perfect examples of how physicians are so giving of their time and talents around the world."
LocumTenens.com is committed to supporting medical missions work and increasing healthcare access in underserved areas, sponsoring and recruiting physicians for several medical brigades annually, and also by operating the website medicalmissions.org, which helps connect trained medical volunteers with organizations sponsoring medical missions all over the world. In 2014, more than 28,000 mission opportunities were posted by mission-focused organizations from around the world. More information about the 2015 MedicalMission.org Physician of the Year honorees is available on the LocumTenens.com website.
About MedicalMissions.org
MedicalMissions.org is a 501(c)(3) organization that connects medical volunteers and other volunteers with organizations sponsoring medical missions all over the world. Our services are 100 percent free for both medical volunteers who register and mission organizations posting their opportunities. The goal of MedicalMissions.org is to connect motivated healthcare providers with organizations sponsoring medical missions by offering a free, searchable database of health-related volunteer opportunities and medical mission trips. These include short and long-term medical volunteer opportunities, both domestic and international.
About LocumTenens.com
Founded in 1995, LocumTenens.com is a full-service healthcare recruiting agency that helps physicians, CRNAs, NPs, PAs and psychologists find the right job opportunities. We also work with healthcare facilities and government agencies that need help with their staffing needs. LocumTenens.com operates the largest internet job board for the industry with direct access to thousands of jobs - in all specialties - posted directly by facilities and agencies nationwide. LocumTenens.com is part of the Jackson Healthcare family of companies. To learn more, visit www.locumtenens.com.
LocumTenens.com's agency recruiters specialize in emergency medicine, primary care, ob/gyn, anesthesia, neurology, psychiatry, psychology, radiology, oncology, urology, gastroenterology and most surgical subspecialties.
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