Shape Up Rhode Island Launches February 2006

Treating 30,000 Tsunami Victims

We Are Now Supporting Doctors in Mali

USA Today: Adopt A Doctor Receives Grant from Google

A Legislative Grant from House Majority Leader Gordon Fox

Invite Us to Speak at Your Organization

Adopt A Doctor Feautured in Providence Journal

Donate Simply By Searching Online

Make A Year-End Contribution to Adopt A Doctor

New Doctor Added in Malawi

Adopt A Doctor Executive Director Rajiv Kumar has recently formed Shape Up Rhode Island, a statewide campaign to promote physical activity and a healthy lifestyle. Modeled on a successful campaigns carried out in 20 other states, this 4-month team-based competition will provide an opportunity for Rhode Islanders to unite for the common cause of improving the health of our community. This campaign will work to combat obesity, encourage regular physical activity, promote mental health, and raise awareness about the health risks of a sedentary lifestyle and poor diets.

Co-Chairs of this important health campaign include Congressman Patrick Kennedy, Rhode Island News Anchor Karen Adams from Fox Channel 12, and Rhode Island House Majority Leader Rep. Gordon Fox.

Shape Up Rhode Island will serve as a fundraiser for Adopt A Doctor, Global Alliance to Immunize Against AIDS (GAIA) Vaccine Foundation, and other local health care non-profit organizations.

It has been several months since we last communicated with you. In this time, we have been working hard to grow Adopt A Doctor and increase our impact on health care in developing nations. We are proud to say that 2005 has been a banner year for our organization. From enrolling new doctors in our program to financially supporting an entire health care clinic in Indonesia that has treated over 30,000 victims of the tsunami, we finish off this year having saved thousands of lives and strongly pushed our cause forward.

We hope that in the spirit of the holiday season you will find some resources to make a year-end contribution to Adopt A Doctor to help us continue our important work through the next year.

With best wishes for a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year,

Ray Rickman, Chairman
Rajiv Kumar, Executive Director
Lee Howard, Program Director

In August of this year, Adopt A Doctor sought and received a $50,000 grant from Do Something Inc. of New York to fund a health clinic providing ongoing medical care, education, and other support for victims of the tsunami. To carry out this important work, we partnered with the American Overseas Medical Aid Association (AOMAA) to provide substantial financial support for Clinic IBU in Aceh, Indonesia. We are proud to report that our contribution to Clinic IBU has kept this amazing medical clinic alive and functioning and providing lifesaving care to the Indonesian people.

After the tsunami, beginning on December 28, 2004, a group of talented, young Indonesian physicians, nurses, psychologists, teachers, managers, logisticians, program development officers, and support administrative staff gathered to form a medical team called IBU4Aceh. This clinic is a highly functioning, highly ethical, professional, local-non- profit organization that grew from the original core group of 11 doctors and 50 volunteers who started working in Meulaboh, Aceh, on January 1, 2005.

Over the past year, they have provided: primary medical care, psychosocial support and counseling, preschool programs with integrated psychological counseling, community events, livelihood project development, village health worker training, vaccine campaigns for measles and polio in collaboration with UNICEF, triage for high risk pregnant women, coverage of abandoned public health centers, rural village outreach mobile medical teams, data collection and project referral, collaboration with UN and BRR government organizing committees, facilitation of UNICEF programs, collaboration with international NGOs, and many more services.

Adopt A Doctor is proud to be funding this clinic for 6 months, helping to pay the salaries for the doctors as well as shelter, equipment, vehicle rental, and medical supplies. This team has seen over 30,000 medical patients and over 40,000 patients and participants in psychosocial counseling, preschools, and community events. We are all grateful for the opportunity to have served the tsunami survivors whose tragic loss was overwhelming.

We have now added another target country to our program. In addition to supporting doctors in Liberia, Malawi, Sierra Leone, and Indonesia, Adopt A Doctor will now begin financial support for doctors practicing in Mali.

The first doctor enrolled in the program is Dr. Adama Daou, Director of the Chez Rosalie program in Sikoro, an impoverished neighborhood in Bamako, Mali. He is responsible for the health of more than 30,000 inhabitants of the village surrounding his clinic. In return for the Adopt A Doctor support, Dr. Daou has agreed to devote his efforts to improving access to care for HIV seropositive patients at the Sikoro clinic. Beginning on Dec 1, 2005, he has agreed to a commitment of 12 months, renewable for every year of the planned seven years of support by Adopt A Doctor. In exchange for this commitment Dr. Daou will receive a $100 monthly stipend from Adopt A Doctor.

With a 90 percent unemployment rate, the average income per person in this area of Mali is low (less than US$50/month) and living conditions are poor. Families mainly provide healthcare when needed. The primary conditions leading to health risks are: unemployment, lack of hygiene, high rate of promiscuity, high rate of sexually active youth, poverty and lack of food.

The center where Dr. Daou works serves 33,756 people. It is the third largest center of its type in Mali. The birthrate was 62 percent in 2003. The center averages 100 births per month, which is more than three births per day. The center is a building equipped with one main doctor's office, a consultation room, an observation room, a treatment room, a laboratory (without refrigerator), an antenatal assessment room directed by a laboratory technician (Mrs. Sangarà Awa SoumarÃ), a dispensary, toilets, a birthing room, a recovery room with seven beds, a room for uninfected children, and a waiting room.

The Global Alliance to Immunize against AIDS (GAIA) will serve as the agent to identify doctors for the program, deliver the funds on a monthly basis, and oversee the work of the physicians.

"Dr. Daou is a Malian physician who is completely dedicated to his patients and their wellbeing. His current salary is $200 per month. This supplement from Adopt A Doctor will enable GAIA to retain this hard working, well trained doctor at Sikoro despite offers to go elsewhere. I cannot think of a more appropriate use of the Adopt A Doctor funds in Mali, at the present time. We are very grateful for this support of Dr. Daou and our programs in Bamako," said GAIA Director Anne De Groot, MD.

This year Adopt A Doctor received a generous grant from Google. Through this grant, Adopt A Doctor receives thousands of dollars worth of free advertising each month to send visitors through the Google search engine to our website to learn more about our program. This grant has generated a high- level of traffic to our website which has resulted in increased awareness, a number of online donations, and many people from all over the world volunteering to help our cause.

Adopt A Doctor Chairman Ray Rickman was recently interviewed by USA Today about this grant, and the article appeared in the paper on December 26th.

Last month, Rajiv Kumar and Ray Rickman accepted a $5,000 legislative grant from Rhode Island House Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox.

“Adopt A Doctor uses relatively little money to make a very real difference in the lives of literally thousands of the world’s poorest people, who get very little medical care because there are so few doctors in their country,” said Majority Leader Fox, a Democrat who represents District 4 in Providence. “I’m very proud that Providence is home to such a worthy international organization, and I’m happy to help support its mission.”

The legislative grant will help support our efforts to spread the word about the health care crises worldwide through presentations to area high school students.

The Providence Journal featured a front page article about Adopt A Doctor and its ongoing efforts to support doctors in the world's poorest nations.

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R.I. group aids doctors who stay in countries where they're needed

Launched two years ago, Adopt a Doctor works to keep native doctors practicing in countries where their services are undercompensated, underappreciated and rare.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

BY ELIZABETH GUDRAIS
Journal Staff Writer

In the United States, the doctor-patient ratio is 1 to 182, World Health Organization statistics show. In Indonesia, that ratio is 1 to 6,250. In Sierra Leone, 1 to 13,700. In Liberia, 1 to 43,500. And in Malawi, there is one doctor for every 88,000 people.

These aren't the only impoverished countries with shortages of doctors. But in those four countries, through a Providence-based nonprofit called Adopt a Doctor, Rhode Islanders' money is augmenting the salaries of individual doctors, helping them to resist the temptation to emigrate for more money.

"Doctors can make a better living in the United States as a cab driver than as a doctor in Africa," says Rajiv Kumar, Adopt a Doctor's executive director.

Doctors' salaries in those countries are low, not just in comparison to their salaries in the United States, but in comparison to other occupations' earning power. In American society, doctors are highly respected and highly rewarded. It's not that way everywhere. "In Liberia, janitors make more money than doctors," says Ray Rickman, the organization's chairman and president.

The consequence: Doctors in those countries leave. After all, parts of Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom are short on doctors, too, and clinics in those places offer perks such as five-digit signing bonuses, rent-free office space and interest-free loans.

In Malawi, a doctor makes $80 (U.S.) a month. The work is harder, too -- doctors there see 50 to 70 patients a day, two to three times the number an American physician might see.

Adopt a Doctor, founded two years ago by Rickman and Kumar, pays each doctor $1,000 a year -- roughly doubling the doctor's pay -- in exchange for the doctor's agreement to stay in his or her native country for seven years. (Without the stipend, doctors leave these countries after an average of three years, according to Rickman.)

There is now an innovative new way to support Adopt A Doctor. The website GoodSearch.com , which uses Yahoo search technology, allows you to search the web while financially supporting Adopt A Doctor. Simply select Adopt A Doctor as the charity you wish to support, and a portion of all advertising revenue generated by GoodSearch during your search time will be donated to Adopt A Doctor. Read more about GoodSearch in the New York Times.

The holiday season is an especially good time to make a contribution to Adopt A Doctor if you have appreciated stock that you are thinking about selling. You can give the appreciated stock to Adopt A Doctor to support our important health care work and claim the full market value at the time of the donation on your tax returns. It is one of the few win-win options the I.R.S. provides to investors. We urge you to help Adopt A Doctor save lives in Africa and Asia by making a year-end gift of stock to our organization.

We thank you in advance for considering this important opportunity to make a charitable donation to Adopt A Doctor.

If you wish to make a donation to Adopt A Doctor, please do so by clicking here or email us at info@adoptado ctor.org

Adopt A Doctor recently enrolled Dr. Dalitso Zeka from Malawi in our program. Dr. Zeka graduated from Malawi's College of Medicine in November 2003. He works as a general practitioner at Kamuzu Central Hospital, doing ward rounds most days and assisting with general surgical clinic on Thursdays. He sees 50- 70 patients per day, most of whom are suffering from HIV-related illnesses. Dr. Zeka earns 25,780 malawian kwacha (or $185) but his rent costs 12,000 kwacha (half his salary). Dr. Zeka will receive a $100 US monthly salary supplement to assist with living expenses. In exchange, Dr. Zeka has signed a contract agreeing to stay in Malawi for at least seven years and continue to treat a population that desperately needs his services.

We welcome Dr. Zeka to the Adopt A Doctor team and look forward to telling you more about his important work in the months to come.