Called to Serve and Share
By: Kristin Baird Rattini (Photographs by: Mike Ledford) | Categories: Alumni Achievements
As part of the Hippocratic Oath, doctors swear to “gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.” Surgeon James “Jim” Brown, Bio 74, exemplifies that vow.
During his 14 years in Cameroon as program director and chief of surgery for the Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons (PAACS), Brown persevered through a violent civil conflict, considerable gaps in resources and cross-cultural challenges to train the next generation of African Christian surgeons. The 21 general surgeons and three head-and-neck surgeons who graduated from the five-year residency program during Brown’s tenure now practice in nine African countries—in some cases, as the only specialist in a region of millions.
“Even though we’re a global world now and there are a lot of connections, billions of people don’t have access to basic medical and surgical care,” Brown says. “My dedication to training surgeons in Africa was about trying to make a difference in that significant problem.”
Brown found his calling during his sophomore year at Georgia Tech. Through his participation in the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, he embraced his faith and the spirit of serving others. “My desire to study medicine came out of my interest in wanting to serve people,” he says.
His 20-year surgical career with the U.S. Navy took him on multiple deployments, from the Arabian Sea to Japan to Bosnia and Herzegovina. “I worked in some austere environments,” he says. “I learned a lot about leadership, working with a team, and focusing on the mission. All of those became very valuable later for me.”
Upon retirement from the Navy in August 1998, Brown joined a private surgical practice in Danville, Virginia, a poor, rural area with a high percentage of unemployed and uninsured residents. He also started participating in medical mission trips across Latin America, Asia, and Africa. A 2003 trip to Cameroon, an ethnically and geographically diverse country of 28 million people in West Africa, opened Brown’s eyes to the human toll resulting from the lack of surgical care there. “I had never seen such suffering and deprivation,” he says. He operated on mangled extremities, head injuries, kidney and bowel obstructions, and other critical cases. “I was overwhelmed by the number of patients needing urgent surgery, and I was unprepared for many of the cases,” he says. Brown connected with the non-denominational service organization PAACS and moved to Cameroon with his wife, Carolyn, in 2008. “I was drawn by PAACS’ vision for training African doctors who stay in Africa,” he says. “It multiplied my service 100-fold, because I was not only treating patients but training surgeons who were nationals treating patients.”
PAACS residents agree to remain in Africa for five years, a period equal to their training. PAACS’ 150-plus graduates across 17 training sites have all stayed. “That’s a remarkable legacy,” Brown says.
By its peak in 2017, Brown had greatly expanded the surgical residency program at Mbingo Baptist Hospital in Bamenda. The clinic had grown from a single room with a curtain between two stretchers to seven private exam rooms. In 10 modern operating rooms, surgeons treated more than 10,000 cases annually, resulting in tremendous improvements in patient outcomes. Several dozen international physicians visited each year. Brown started collaborating with Stanford University and Johns Hopkins University on research projects. He’d secured accreditation for the program. And he saw a transformation in his students’ approach, from the rote memorization of their prior training to an empowered, proactive mindset.
“We taught them not just surgery but a whole new way of creative thinking,” Brown says. “I saw them grow and learn. That moment when the light bulb goes on, when you’ve taken them through something they’ve never done before and they get it and it’s now theirs, that is really rewarding.”
After an armed conflict broke out in Bamenda, Brown was forced to suspend the residency program from November 2018 until January 2020. The hospital was declared a neutral zone, and for months Brown was the only general surgeon on site, treating gunshot victims from both sides of the conflict. “I worked under difficult circumstances that make you think, ‘How do you go on?’” he says. “But my faith is absolutely foundational to that. I couldn’t do it on my own strength.”
In June 2022, Brown retired at age 70 from his PAACS post and relocated back to the States. Brown still assists remotely and travels back and forth to Cameroon and other PAACS sites to share his considerable expertise.
In October 2022, the American College of Surgeons honored Brown with its Academic Global Surgeon Award, which recognizes those committed to making significant contributions to surgical education and care in regions of inequities. “My identity is so tied to this idea of bringing quality surgery to the world’s poor,” he says. “To be recognized for that is very gratifying.”
