International Nonprofit Honors Chesapeake Surgeon

NORFOLK, VA (09/17/2010)(readMedia)-- Physicians for Peace will honor Dr. Juan Montero on Oct. 2 with its first Excellence in Service Award for his longtime support of the organization's mission, at home and abroad, as well as his humanitarian efforts in the Philippines. The award ceremony takes place during the 2010 Physicians for Peace Celebrate the Nations Gala Reception in Virginia Beach, Va.

"It's fitting that our first Excellence in Service Award honors Dr. Montero, who has been the consummate volunteer, leader and advocate for our organization for 15 years and counting," said Brig. Gen. Ron Sconyers (USAF, Ret.), president and chief executive officer of Physicians for Peace. "We've come to rely on his expertise and compassion, as well as his characteristic good humor. He's made a profound commitment to helping underserved communities in the Philippines and here in the U.S."

Team Leader and Pioneer

Montero, who retired from general and thoracic surgery private practice in 2007, has been a friend of Physicians for Peace since 1995. He remains a key organizer of Physicians for Peace – Philippines in Manila, an organization that was established under his leadership in 1998. As a volunteer leader, Montero has traveled to the Philippines dozens of times to share his expertise and help the program grow from serving a few hundred patients each year to serving thousands annually. Its in-country Walking Free initiative, which provides education and training to medical professionals involved in the treatment of amputees, has become one of Physicians for Peace's signature programs, and a prosthetic school in Manila will open in June 2011. Montero also has helped Physicians for Peace-Philippines develop medical supply donation programs, recruit volunteers from the U.S. and help start Seeing Clearly, a comprehensive optometric eye care program through which thousands of eyeglasses are distributed annually. Thanks to Montero's initiative, the Philippines also hosts the only Lions medical eye bank in Southeast Asia.

"We in the Philippines are extremely blessed to have Dr. Montero in our midst," said Lyne Alano Abanilla, executive director of Physicians for Peace-Philippines."He's an American citizen, but he has his fellow Filipinos in his heart. When he sets his mind to something, he sets everyone and everything to motion."

Montero's commitment to serving those without adequate access to health care extends beyond a single organization. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Montero launched a mobile health clinic project for migrant workers in Virginia's Eastern Shore. In 1992, he opened the Chesapeake Care Free Clinic to provide medical and dental health care to the uninsured population in Hampton Roads. Today, 17 full- and part-time employees and more than 90 volunteers staff the clinic five days a week and two Saturdays a month.

For his work, Montero, a past president of the Society of Philippine Surgeons in America and the Association of Philippine Physicians in America, has received numerous honors, including the Philippine Presidential Award in 2000, the Association of American Medical College's Humanism in Medicine Award in 2002 and the American College of Surgeons' Surgical Volunteerism Award in 2003.

At the gala, Physicians for Peace also will honor President Bill Clinton, who will receive the organization's highest honor, the Charles E. Horton Award for Humanitarian Service, via video. In addition, the group will recognize its 2010 Medical Diplomat Award winners: Dr. Ed Karotkin, a neonatologist at the Children's Hospital King's Daughters in Norfolk and Physicians for Peace's chairman-elect; Robin Jones, R.N., a nurse and midwife in Chesapeake; and Omar Boukhriss, the owner of Omar's Carriage House, Voilà and The Pagoda Restaurant in Norfolk.

"Each of the 2010 award recipient has demonstrated ongoing, selfless contributions to the achievement of the Physicians for Peace mission in training and education, clinical and research excellence and delivery of health care services," Sconyers said.

Tickets Still Available

The 2010 Celebrate the Nations Gala Reception will be held at the Cavalier Beach Club in Virginia Beach on Saturday, October 2, 2010, from 6:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Tickets and sponsorship opportunities are still available. For more information, visit www.physiciansforpeace.org or contact Sallie Ray, sray@physiciansforpeace.org; (757) 625-7569.

ABOUT PHYSICIANS FOR PEACE

Physicians for Peace is an international non-profit organization that mobilizes volunteer health care professionals to assist developing nations with unmet medical needs and scarce resources. Through effective, hands-on medical education and training, clinical care and donated medical supplies, Physicians for Peace develops long-term, sustainable, replicable, and evidence-based programs to help partner nations build medical capability and capacity to help themselves. Since 1989 Volunteers for the 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization have conducted medical missions in more than 60 countries.

With its headquarters in Norfolk, Va., Physicians for Peace has programs in 22 countries and offices in Manila, the Philippines and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. In 2009, the organization celebrated its 20th Anniversary.

For more information, go to: www.physiciansforpeace.org

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