Roanoke Physicians Make Global Impact

Drs. Andy and Penny Muelenaer travel the globe to help people in need.

Roanoke, VA (June 17, 2004)   Carilion Biomedical Institute’s mission is to “improve the lives of people worldwide.” In March of 2004 Dr. Andy Muelenaer, Medical Director of Carilion Biomedical Institute (CBI) and a practicing pediatric pulmonologist, executed this mission through a visit to the former Soviet Republic of Kyrgyzstan.  The same organization that invited Dr. Muelenaer to lecture in Kyrgyzstan recruited Dr. Muelenaer’s wife, Dr. Penny Muelenaer, a practicing pediatric infectious disease physician, to visit Malawi, Africa to perform an HIV needs assessment analysis. She visited Malawi in February of this year.

In June of 2003, while attending an international biotechnology conference in Washington D.C., Dr. Andy Muelenaer met Dr. Tanya Soldak and Letty Johnson from CitiHope International, a medical relief organization that provides aid to countries including Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, and Uzbekistan.   The pair described the purpose of their organization and told Dr. Muelenaer that they were in search of donated medical equipment and supplies.

Upon returning to Roanoke from the conference, Dr. Muelenaer immediately began contacting people within the Carilion Health System in search of outdated and unwanted equipment and supplies.  What he found was thousands of dollars of laboratory equipment and medical supplies that could no longer be used in the Health System but priceless in terms of the impact that it would have on healthcare in the former Soviet Republic of Belarus.  Dr. Muelenaer worked with members of the Health System to arrange for the donation of these items to CitiHope International.  He says, “These supplies and equipment are outdated in terms of what is used here in the US today.  However, in developing nations this equipment has tremendous impact because it can literally save lives.”

After the equipment was donated, CitiHope decided to recruit Dr. Muelenaer’s talent as a trained pulmonologist to help in Kyrgyzstan.  Located in central Asia, slightly smaller than South Dakota and with a population of nearly 5 million people, Kyrgyzstan is still trying to recover from the economic devastation created by the collapse of the Soviet Union.   CitiHope has been providing medical relief to Kyrgyzstan since 1997, primarily through medication donations from US pharmaceutical companies.  While working in Kyrgyzstan, CitiHope representatives discovered that similar to the situation of many developing nations around the world, Kyrgyzstani healthcare providers do not possess the latest skills in the diagnosis of basic diseases or in the administration of newer pharmaceutical agents.  With a grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), CitiHope created the Pharmaceutical Benefit Initiative, a series of educational sessions designed to connect physician training with medication administration for the treatment of specific diseases.  As part of this program, Dr. Muelenaer and two other medical educators made a one-week visit in late March 2004 and gave a series of lectures about the diagnosis and treatment of asthma.  A total of 112 physicians were trained, many of who were receiving their first medical update in over 10 years.  All physicians were from rural family practice groups and were expected to return and share the knowledge that they gained with several colleagues, thus multiplying the effect of the educational sessions.   “When I returned from my trip to Kyrgyzstan in March, people asked me how I could leave my family, friends and comforts to fly around the world to a country that is difficult to find on the map! Now that I have been to Kyrgyzstan, I can’t imagine not going and not helping out,” exclaims Dr. Muelenaer.

Dr. Muelenaer also participated in a national roundtable discussion about rural healthcare with Kyrgyz government and medical school officials, representatives from the Kyrgyz association of family practice, and medical and administrative officials from USAID, and from CitiHope International.

Dr. Muelenaer is now back in Roanoke at CBI promoting technology solutions for healthcare needs. In his spare time, he is writing grant proposals for continuation of the Pharmaceutical Benefit Initiative and exploring possible high-tech solutions such as telemedicine for the people of Kyrgyzstan, Malawi, and other countries where communications and transportation are barriers to essential healthcare. One outcome of the Pharmaceutical Benefit Initiative program in Kyrgyzstan has been a request by USAID that CitiHope replicate the program in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan. Periodically, Dr. Muelenaer thinks about a note he wrote to himself and affixed to his computer monitor early in his tenure at CBI that read, “find high tech solution for a third world problem.”

The aspiration to fix problems in developing nations seems to run in the family.  In early December 2003, the Muelenaer’s, drove to CitiHope’s offices in Washington, DC to deliver basic laboratory equipment from Carilion that performs pre and post surgical laboratory testing. The Reverend Paul Moore, President of CitiHope, met Dr. Penny Muelenaer for the first time on this visit and, upon learning of her medical specialty, recruited her to get involved with CitiHope as well.

Reverend Moore’s plan can be summed up in the old saying, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.  Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Reverend Moore also believes in utilizing the talents of individuals to create a multiplier effect.  To this end, he challenged Drs. Andy and Penny Muelenaer to go out and attempt to make an impact on the healthcare of entire countries rather than only going to a far away place and seeing patients for a week or two.

In February of 2004, CitiHope sent Dr. Penny Muelenaer to Malawi, Africa to perform a needs assessment of HIV care as part of a strategy to leverage US federal grants, donations from pharmaceutical companies, and private food and supply donations.  Malawi is a small landlocked nation of 12 million people located in sub-Saharan Africa and is designated as one of the poorest countries in the world. Dr. Muelenaer visited hospitals, schools, orphanages, and prisons and spoke with governmental representatives, physicians, nurses, missionaries, and anyone else willing to talk about the impact that HIV has on Malawi. She is now passionately working with the staff of CitiHope to write grant proposals and to communicate with governmental agencies regarding provision of desperately needed medical care for Malawi infants and children infected with HIV or for those orphaned through the loss of their parents to the disease in Malawi. Although Malawi recently received a grant for over $100 million from the Global Fund, the country does not have an adequate infrastructure to effectively utilize these funds. “In the hospitals that I visited, more than half of the nursing and physician positions were vacant. Even Malawi’s educated and experienced citizens have not been spared the wrath of the famine and disease.  I will never forget the pleading faces of the few remaining medical personnel and villagers who would grasp my hand as I was leaving and implore me not to forget them.  I think of these brave and gracious people everyday.  I am committed to helping them,” explains Dr. Muelenaer.

Although she is now back in Roanoke, Dr. Muelenaer is in constant communication with her infectious disease colleagues as well as individuals in Africa as she strives to deliver the message that generations of people in Malawi are being lost to the scourge of HIV. Dr. Muelenaer has recently accepted a full-time position with CitiHope where she will continue her commitment to treating those with HIV / AIDS in Africa.

The Muelenaer’s will give a joint presentation on global medicine, hosted by the Carilion Biomedical Institute, on Monday, June 21, 12 pm, at the Jefferson College of Health Sciences. Visit biomedicalinstitute.com for more information. Carilion Health System is at carilion.com and CitiHope International is at citihope.org.

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