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In the early morning hours, CMMB volunteer Dr. Tom Catena begins his seven-day work week at St. Mary’s Mission Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya.  His commute is a short one; he lives on a compound directly behind the hospital.  When Dr. Catena arrives at work he makes his rounds, visiting thirty to forty newly admitted or post-operative patients.  Then, around 10:00AM, he heads to the busy clinic where he cares for an average of seventy patients, or to the operating room, where he performs from ten to twenty surgeries ranging from mastectomies to appendectomies. 

St. Mary’s Mission Hospital was founded in 2000 to provide healthcare for Kenya’s impoverished.  Many patients come to St. Mary’s because they cannot afford the costs of Nairobi medical specialists or the expensive medicines they prescribe.  This keeps Dr. Catena’s day interesting.  He treats patients with common diseases, like tuberculosis and malaria, as well as those with rare cancers and other uncommon disorders.  As a result, Dr. Catena is required to be a specialist for many of his patients.  At the end of a long day’s work, he heads to the hospital’s library or to his apartment to do extensive research.  He consults the latest medical studies online to ensure that each of his patients receives the best possible care.

With such a demanding schedule, it is impressive that Dr. Catena has served as a CMMB medical volunteer since 1998, spending his first three years at Mutorro Hospital in Kenya before moving to St. Mary’s.  Considering his schedule, the AIDS epidemic and the ever-turbulent political situation of Africa, friends and family have asked Dr. Catena if he ever feels discouraged.  He admits that the AIDS epidemic and the lack of healthcare facilities for those who need affordable treatment can be overwhelming.  But he responds that he is in Africa to treat individuals, not the continent.  Although each day brings both good and bad, for Dr. Catena the success of helping individuals heal far outweighs the heavy schedule and challenging workload he manages day to day. 

Dr. Catena has been especially enthusiastic about the incredible progress in Kenya to assist those with HIV. When Dr. Catena first began his work in Kenya, anti-retroviral drugs for people with HIV were rare and expensive.  As a result of programs like CMMB’s AIDSRelief, these drugs have over the past four years become more readily available. Dr. Catena is often able to prescribe them at no cost to recipients.  He has witnessed HIV patients weighing a mere seventy pounds enter the hospital with little hope.  In only four to five months of anti-retroviral treatment, these same patients can gain as many as forty pounds and regain their health, allowing them to return to their families and resume work.  From his earliest days in Kenya, when a diagnosis of HIV often meant death, Dr. Catena can now offer HIV-positive patients anti-retroviral drugs that can improve the quality of life for many. 

After nearly nine years of service in Kenya, Dr. Catena is preparing to transfer to a small hospital in rural Sudan.  He is looking forward to practicing medicine while learning about a new culture as he continues his volunteer partnership with CMMB, an organization he praises for its efforts to place doctors where they are needed the most.

CMMB MVP Profile: Dr. Tom Catena

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