Biography
Dr. Strada graduated in medicine and trauma surgery from the University of Milan in 1978. During most of the 1980s, Dr. Strada was a practicing heart-lung transplant surgeon working in the United States at Stanford and Pittsburgh Universities, as well as Harefield Hospital, UK and Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town South Africa. In, 1988 Dr. Strada redirected his experience as a hospital surgeon to trauma surgery and the care of war victims. From 1989-1994, he worked with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the conflict zones of Pakistan, Ethiopia, Peru, Afghanistan, Somalia and Bosnia.
That field experience motivated Dr. Strada and a group of colleagues to establish Emergency as a "small, agile, highly specialized" humanitarian medical organization in 1994., with its headquarter's in Milan, Italy. Since the end of 2010 Emergency has provided medical services to more than 4,420,000 patients.
In addition to his career as a war surgeon, Dr. Strada is a widely published author. In May 1996, Dr. Strada was the author of the Scientific American cover story, "The Horror of Landmines". He is also the prize winning author of Green Parrots, A War Surgeon’s Diary and Buskashi, A Journey Inside War,. His work was the subject of an award winning documentary “Jung in the Land of the Mujaheedin” and a PBS Point of View, “Afghanistan 1380”.
Emergency claims that it helps civilian victims of war without being hindered by bureaucracy. In 1996, it opened its first hospital in Iraqi Kurdistan. Today, Emergency operates eight hospitals in areas of conflict, including a surgical hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and a hospital in Lashkar-Gah, Afghanistan. Fifty four "First Aid Posts-Health Care Centers", located in heavily mined areas or close to the front lines, are connected to the Emergency hospitals' network.
On 1 September 2009, his wife Teresa Sarti died in Milan. She was co-founder with her husband of Emergency and president of the organization.
Read more about this topic: Gino Strada
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