McCammon
The 1992 graduate, winner of the 2011 College of Medicine and Life Sciences Distinguished Alumnus Award, has traveled all over the world, teaching techniques to improve incontinence, difficulty voiding, and damage to the reproductive organs due to myriad medical problems.
He will discuss his experiences with medical missions at noon Friday, Oct. 21, in Health Education Building Room 103 with a talk titled, “Global Surgical Education: Teaching One, Reaching Many.”
“At several key points in my career, I’ve been in the right place at the right time,” said McCammon, whose original plan was to settle in Lima, Ohio, with his wife, Carol, a fellow 1992 graduate of the Medical College of Ohio. “I had a special opportunity to learn urological reconstruction from a mentor of mine, and since then, an important part of my professional career has been spent teaching these techniques to doctors in the United States and overseas.”
The chair and residency program director of the Eastern Virginia Medical School’s Department of Urology, McCammon’s location puts him close to many military personnel and veterans.
“In the coming months, we plan to start working with military personnel who have been injured on the battlefield and are in need of urologic surgery. In many cases, procedures to reconstruct urological organ damage can be just as central to a person’s sense of self as an arm or a foot,” he said.
Right now, McCammon is working to set up a center of excellence in Nairobi, Kenya, where today’s urologic reconstruction students can become tomorrow’s teachers. Because of the poverty that many African nations experience, urologic problems developed due to difficult childbirth or other causes often go untreated to the point where organs undergo significant damage, he said.
Dr. Jeffrey P. Gold, chancellor and executive vice president for biosciences and health affairs, said the direct and indirect impacts McCammon has contributed to patients around the world is the reason the college chose to honor him.
“Each year the College of Medicine Distinguished Alumnus Award goes to a graduate who has gained national or international distinction in his or her profession and whose accomplishments reflect admirably on The University of Toledo College of Medicine,” said Gold, who also serves as dean of the College of Medicine and Life Sciences. “Kurt has practiced and taught urologic reconstructive techniques on six continents, and countless patients benefit from his outreach.”
McCammon will be recognized with distinguished alumni from each of UT’s colleges at the Alumni Gala and Awards Ceremony Friday, Oct. 21, at 6 p.m. in the Student Union Auditorium. Tickets are $30 per person. Members of the Student Alumni Association may use their free event benefit to attend.
For more information or to make reservations, call the Alumni Relations Office at 419.530.ALUM (2586).
