'Doctors Without Borders' Founder Focuses on Global Relief Efforts

INDIANAPOLIS - Providing emergency medical relief to people desperate and war-weary nations is a global obligation if you ask Patrick J. Aeberhard, M.D., one of the founders of Médicins sans Frontières, better known as Doctors Without Borders.

That will be among the messages Dr. Aeberhard will bring to the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 25, where he will discuss trends in humanitarian medical relief and his experiences with Doctors Without Borders. The presentation will be made in the Riley Outpatient Center Ruth Lilly Auditorium at the intersection of West and Middle drives on the IU Medical Center campus

The French physician's experience in global medicine began in 1968 while serving with the International Red Cross as a surgeon in Biafra during the civil war in Nigeria. In 1971 he and other French physicians launched Doctors Without Border sharing a belief "that all people have the right to medical care and that the needs of these people supersede respect for national borders," according to the organization's charter.

Doctors Without Borders' physicians and its other health-care professionals today operate in more than 80 countries, many of whose citizens are caught in the crosshairs of war or situations where medical care is virtually non-existent. Dr. Aeberhard served as the organization's top administrator from 1976 to 1979 and president and his experiences have taken him around the globe.

Dr. Aeberhard, the recipient of the French government's Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur, is the chief of the Cardiac Rehabilitation Center, Centre Cardiologique du Nord, Saint-Denis, Paris, and a consultant in cardiology.

He serves on various boards of international humanitarian organization, such as the Association pour l'Action Humanitaire and the International Harm Reduction Association. He also is co-founder of Médicins du Monde (Doctors of the World).

The lectures are sponsored by the IUPUI Medical Humanities, the Indiana University Center for Bioethics, IU School of Medicine Department of Medicine, Indiana Department of Public Health and the IU Center for Aging Research.

For more information about Doctors Without Borders, go to www.msf.org/.

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Media Contact: Joe Stuteville
317-274-7722
jstutevi@iupui.edu

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