Russ E. White, MD, MPH, FACS, FCS (ECSA)
Dr. Russ White was born in the Belgian Congo to medical missionary parents. He attended Roberts Wesleyan College, the University of Michigan School of Medicine, and the Harvard University School of Public Health. He completed a general surgical residency at Brown University and a fellowship in cardiothoracic surgery at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol, England. He has served as the chief of surgery at Tenwek Mission Hospital in Kenya since 1997, where he spends the majority of his time. His is a clinical professor of surgery at Brown University School of Medicine in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. He was also been the program director of the Tenwek Hospital General Surgery Residency program from 2008-2018. In this capacity, he worked with other consultant Christian surgeons at Tenwek Hospital to train ten surgical residents in a fully approved 5-year general surgical residency. In 2018, he became the director of the cardiothoracic surgical fellowship training program at Tenwek Hospital. In December, 2020, Tenwek graduated its first fully board-certified cardiothoracic surgeon, who has joined Dr. White on the faculty at Tenwek Hospital. Tenwek now expects to be graduating 1-2 new cardiothoracic surgeons per year. Dr. White is in spearheading a major construction campaign at Tenwek Hospital which is currently building the largest dedicated cardiothoracic unit in Sub-Saharan Africa. He is also the chairman of the Education and Scientific Research Committee for the College of Surgeons of East, Central, and Southern Africa, responsible for training surgeons in a wide variety of specialties in 14 different countries in the region. His passion is for teaching and mentoring young surgeons in a distinctly Christian setting. He has special interests in cancer of the esophagus and rheumatic heart disease.