The Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative is hosting the Inaugural Catena Lecture in Medicine, Faith and Service, given by Tom Catena, MD. The lecture is entitled “Gratitude in Action: One Doctor. One Hospital. One Million Patients.”
The annual lectureship will publicly appreciate and encourage students to study the example of Dr. Tom Catena, a singular alumnus of Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. Catena is the only physician for a population of more than 750,000 in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains, a conflict zone where humanitarian aid is restricted. At the Mother of Mercy Hospital, which he founded in 2007, he treats as many as 400 patients a day and is on call around the clock. Treating casualties of the region’s civil war, he performs more than 1000 operations each year, often without running water or electricity. In 2018, Catena received the Catholic Doctor of the Year Award from the Mission Doctors Association in Los Angeles. In 2017, Dr. Catena was awarded the $1.1 million Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity, which honors unsung heroes working to preserve human life at great personal risk. He is the recipient of Honorary Doctorates from Brown University (2016) and Yerevan State Medical University (2017) and was named one of the 100 most influential people by Time magazine in 2015.
The Catena lectureship will be housed within and administered by the Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative of Duke Divinity School, in partnership with the Global Health Institute and the School of Medicine (via the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine).
Free and open to the public. No registration required. Event Website.
Overflow seating will be available in Room 0016 of the Westbrook Building