SDA Surgeon Profiled

[Key Guy]

From the Wallowa County Chieftain, Enterprise, Oregon, USA

http://www.wallowacountychieftain.info/m...amp;TM=50035.74

Quote:

Dr. Kenneth Rose can "think on his feet." He knows, better than most, how to give high quality care with limited technology. He is also qualified to use highly technical medical instruments to give specialized care. That breadth of experience is what makes him such a good match for Wallowa Memorial Hospital (WMH), where everyone is cross-trained to cover other jobs, and where rural medicine meets technological modernity.

Rose began his cross-training as the son of Seventh Day Adventist missionaries who served in Brazil and Ecuador and came 'home' to Walla Walla, Wash. Already a world traveler by 10 years old, he went on to attend Loma Linda University School of Medicine in Los Angeles and finish his surgical training in Michigan.

Upon graduation, he not only had a broad base provided by his family and education, he had the opportunity and responsibility to broaden it further. Rose's education had been provided through the deferred mission appointment program of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and it required six years of mission work as a doctor in needy areas.

So, Rose and his nurse wife, Lorna, whom he had married in 1989, set off for Guam with their three-month-old baby Kalyse (now 15 years old). In Guam, Rose worked as a general surgeon in the Guam Seventh Day Adventist clinic until the little family was able to move on to their primary medical mission in Penang, Malaysia. There, over the next six years, two more children were born, Kami (now 13 years old) and Kristi (now 11 years old).

"Malaysia has a very rich mixture of culture and foods," Rose said. "You have three very strong religions and cultures: the Muslims, the Buddhists and the Hindus." The family enjoyed their stay in Malaysia.

By 1999, Rose had completed his mission responsibilities. However, although now free to return to the states, the growing family decided to answer one more mission call - this one to establish a hospital in Gimbie Town, Ethiopia approximately 450 kilometers west of Addis Abada. It was here that their youngest daughter, Kari (now 9 years old) was born. Rose served as administrator and surgeon there for nearly two more years.

The Gimbie Adventist Hospital, much like WMH, had approximately 25 beds. Unlike WMH, however, it served a population of nearly 40,000 individuals and was more than two hours drive from any other medical service in an area where few had motorized vehicles. "In Gimbie we didn't have any options," he recalled. "If we could take care of the medical need we did, otherwise we did the best we could."

(much more online)