Class of 1965

DR.W.BRAD GERRISH: Bringing care to families around the world.

Family-practice doctor Gerrish (center) has been treating more than families in his hometown of Snohomish, Washington. Since 1972 he and other doctors at his family medical practice have been taking yearlong sabbaticals to perform medical work in under-served areas across the world—from Ethiopia to Zaire to Guatemala to Mexico. "It is personal and faith-based," he says. "We are Christian doctors, of different denominations, but we share the desire to serve those in need." Gerrish has taken five sabbaticals, most recently to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan (2004). He arrived in these post-Soviet areas to find that their medical model did not include general family practice. "We went as family doctors, thinking ours might be a skill that was needed," he says. "And we found out that it was." In Kyrgyzstan and then Tajikistan he helped teams restructure local medical systems while setting up programs and facilities for primary care physician training. He has drawn on his Dartmouth education for his work. "President Dickey's passion to respond to the needs of those less advantaged was inspiring and compelling," says Gerrish. "[It inspired] my growing sense that I had indeed been blessed and that I needed to be a blessing."