Growing up in Miami, Fla., can impart the kind of wisdom it takes to successfully bridge cross-cultural differences. Combine that with the influences of a nurse mother, an educator father and missionary grandparents, then throw in a heap of medical education and practice, and you’ve got Shawn Morehead.

A graduate of Lee College (now Lee University) in Cleveland, Tenn., Morehead earned her medical degree from the University of Miami. She also holds a master’s in public health from UAB. She is board certified in family medicine.

For the past eight years, Morehead, 42, has been the associate director of the Family Medicine Residency Program at St. Vincent’s East. But in January 2009, she’ll be changing jobs, she’ll be changing lifestyles, and she’ll even be changing countries and cultures. But her desire to make medical care available to those who need it has not changed a bit.

Although reluctant to state exactly which country she’ll be relocating to, Morehead will say it’s a developing country in Central Asia, and she will admit to a bit of apprehension. After all, who wouldn’t be nervous over such drastic changes? But for her, it’s a calling from God she can’t ignore.

Morehead has been involved in medical mission work for the past 14 years. Working in conjunction with a nonprofit Christian organization, she’s made 25 mission trips and visited 40 different countries, twice visiting the country that will soon become her new home.

“Once I started doing the mission work, I was sure it was something significant,” she said.

Over the years, the scope of the work Morehead has been involved in has broadened to include efforts to effect improvements from within.

“We started out doing medical clinics, but we’re now involved in medical education,” she said. “We decided we wanted to help start family medicine residency training programs in some of the more needy countries of the world.”

Less-developed countries generally don’t have standardized healthcare, and any systems that are in place are antiquated due to such factors as war, famine or political situations. For these countries, the most feasible route to a higher level of healthcare is through family medicine.

“Ninety percent of healthcare needs can be met by a primary care physician,” Morehead said, “and we’re hoping to improve the healthcare of the population at large. Our long-term vision is probably a ten-year process.”

The hospital where Morehead will be working already has a family medicine program, but more faculty support is needed to strengthen it. She will be performing basically the same duties she now carries out at St. Vincent’s East: making rounds with residents, teaching and lecturing.

“It’ll be a different context, obviously, but it’ll have similarities,” she said. “Like the program here, it’s a three-year program, and the curriculum is similar, but we’ll have to adapt to differences in technology and the state of healthcare there.”

On a socio-cultural level, Morehead hopes to become a role model for the women of her adopted country.

“The women in Central Asia are just now starting to have more opportunities,” she said.

Out of respect to the people she’ll be serving, she’ll be making minor concessions in her mode of dress, but nothing that she really minds.

At this point, Morehead plans to live overseas eight months out of the year and spend four months stateside. She hopes that dividing her time that way will allow her to maintain relationships here that will benefit her work there.

“The hardest things for me will be leaving the relationships I have here at St. Vincent’s East and making the transition. I love my job. I have the greatest job in the world here,” she said.

Since announcing her plans, Morehead has experienced what she considers “incredible” professional support from her physician partners, the residents she teaches and the administration at St. Vincent’s East. While she’s grateful, she’s not surprised.

“What I’m doing is in keeping with the St. Vincent’s creed of caring for the poor,” she said. “It fits with (the hospital system’s) mission statement.”

Her family, said Morehead, is understandably concerned, but also supportive, of the path she has chosen. Her church, Metropolitan Church of God in Birmingham, has been supportive, too.

Morehead will be seeking additional support for her mission in the form of monetary and prayer partnerships July through October. She’ll then return to St. Vincent’s East briefly before departing for Central Asia the first of the year.



June 2008