DO - Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine

Frontlinesby Maureen Harmon
Missionary Medicine
photo provided by Tim Kubacki, D.O.
Tim Kubacki, D.O. (‘90), had planned to be a baseball
player. He retired that dream, though, when he was cut
from the Yankees minor leagues in his 20s. That dream
was supplanted by an
epiphany that not only
rearranged his career
but his life and took
him all the way to the
Brazilian rainforest.
“I had gotten pretty
wrapped up in me and
my own happiness. I
recognized the futility
of such a pursuit,”
Kubacki says. Worried
about the suffering of
people in developing
countries, Kubacki acted
when a retired missionary
suggested he take his biology degree and pursue
a career in medicine to help those in poor areas. Kubacki
found his calling. “In the next three months,” Kubacki
writes in his blog, “I went from having no desire for
medicine to applying to medical school” so his life would
“count for something,” he says.
By 1993, Kubacki had wrapped up a residency in family
medicine and was working part-time at Morrow County
Hospital in Ohio. Dave Keseg, who works for a company
that staffs hospitals, asked Kubacki to direct Morrow
County’s Emergency Department. “I knew he was a man
of high integrity,” says Keseg, “… and I knew I wanted
him working for our company.”
“ I never cease to be amazed at
the difficulty of these people’s
lives.” –Tim Kubacki, D.O. (’90)
Kubacki and Keseg also had similar vision and values.
They opened the Vineyard Free Medical Clinic in
Columbus, Ohio, which a nearby church sponsored. Every
Wednesday night in the lobby of the church’s food
pantry, the doctors and churchgoers offered two hours
of medical and spiritual help to the uninsured people of
Columbus. Kubacki, Keseg and eventually a few other
volunteer physicians offered simple medical care to
“anybody that had episodic health needs,” says Keseg.
It started with just a few patients a night, but now the
team can expect to see between 30 and 60 patients
streaming through the clinic.
Kubacki was so pleased with the way spirituality and
medicine complemented each other at the clinic, he
wanted to replicate the model. In December 2005, he
and his wife, Betsy, packed up their belongings and four
children and headed to Brazil near the Xingu River, a
tributary to the Amazon.
“[It was a] a bittersweet parting,” says Keseg. On the
one hand they were losing a friend and a fine doctor,
but “we know this is something the Lord has laid on
[Kubacki’s] heart for a long time,” he said.
In Brazil, Kubacki joined a group called the Xingu Mission
in the small town of Altamira, where Kubacki and his
family are now living. The interdenominational group of
nine families had been doing missionary work in the area
for a decade. Kubacki, who is working to get a Brazilian
medical license, is the first physician to join the group and
address medical needs.
“The area is the Amazon Rain Forest that you’ve read
about.” It is rife with problems typical of tropical regions,
which often have no running water or electricity: dysentery,
malaria and parasitic illness. He’s seen leprosy and
tuberculosis. But, “It’s absolutely beautiful,” he’s quick to
point out. Still, he writes, “I never cease to be amazed at
the difficulty of these people’s lives.” He travels quite a
http://spaces.msn.com/members/kubacki6
For Tim Kubacki, D.O. ('90), a call to missionary medicine in Brazil was a family affair.
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