Charlie and Loraine Kelley Led Early IU Partnership in Kenya

Charlie Kelley, MD, is one of the four Indiana University physicians who traveled to Kenya, Ghana and Nepal in 1988 seeking a new academic medical partnership. When IU formed the partnership with Moi University in Kenya that would become AMPATH, he returned to Kenya with his wife Loraine to serve as the second team leader in 1991.

His AMPATH co-founders describe him as the force that kept the effort on track in the beginning and a sounding board and voice of reason in the ensuing decades.

Loraine and Charlie Kelley

“Loraine and I had long interest in how to make a difference in the world, particularly among the underserved here in Indianapolis and in the U.S., but especially internationally,” said Dr. Kelley, associate professor emeritus at IU School of Medicine. “Because of our involvement with Christian Medical Society, where there are a number of members who are working around the world, we got to see other parts of the world and how difficult it was to provide medical care -- just the unmet needs.”

Dr. Kelley and IU physician Joe Mamlin, MD, served together in the Peace Corp in Afghanistan in the mid-1960s and became close friends. “When we were ready to leave Afghanistan, Joe suggested I come to Indiana to finish my residency, and so I did. I finished my internal medicine residency at IU and Loraine finished a pediatric residency at Methodist,” he recalled.

Dr. Kelley was also friends with Dave Van Reken, MD, who he had visited while the Van Rekens lived in Liberia and Dr. Kelley encouraged him to join IU in the Department of Pediatrics. Dr. Bob Einterz had spent time in Haiti and worked with Dr. Mamlin at Wishard.

“One afternoon Joe and I were sitting with (fellow doctors) Bob Einterz and Dave Van Reken, and said ‘You know, we've had wonderful experiences internationally. It would be great for the IU Department of Medicine if we had an affiliation with an international program.’ Then we got funding (from a donor) and the gang of four did the trip,” he recalled.

Charlie Kelley, Joe Mamlin and Dave Van Reken during the first trip to Kenya in 1988.

Through other missionary doctors, Dr. Kelley was introduced to healthcare leaders in Ghana and Nepal and to Dr. Haroun Mengech, the first dean of the brand-new Moi University Faculty of Health Sciences, in Kenya. After visiting all three locations, the IU doctors decided to pursue a partnership in Kenya because the new medical school was relatively small with only 35-40 students in the class, most people spoke English, and Dean Mengech was committed to using a problem-based and community-based curriculum to teach medical students.

“When we returned to Indiana, we formulated a plan to have one IU faculty member on site in Eldoret, Kenya, for a year at a time and have Kenyan faculty rotate into IU on a regular basis,” recalled Dr. Van Reken. Dr. Einterz volunteered to be the first faculty member in Eldoret in 1990, followed by Dr. Kelley, Dr. Mamlin and Dr. Van Reken.

“Kenya was developing. They needed people. They had only 3 faculty members,” continued Dr. Kelley. “We knew we could really make a difference and be helpful. We weren't sure that it would work. At every level it just exceeded our expectations. The relationships really developed and have been maintained. We were very careful in setting up the partnership that we wanted to be a supportive relationship that the Kenyans would be in charge and we would be reporting to them as leaders and supporting them as leaders. I think that went very well.”

Dr. Kelley recalls that initially the leadership at IU was hesitant about the Kenya partnership, but Dr. Mamlin had some resources through the Department of Medicine and “we agreed it was a good cause.” Eventually the Departments of Pediatrics and Surgery joined the partnership. Today the AMPATH partnership includes involvement of many medicine departments, schools and disciplines across IU leads 15 other universities around the world in the Kenya partnership with new partnerships in Ghana, Nepal and Mexico.

“Mamlin had the vision, I had the passion and we’d both go galloping forward. It was always Charlie who would pull back on the reins to help steady us,” said Dr. Einterz, professor emeritus at the IU School of Medicine.

The first “IU House” in Kenya was a 6-bedroom house with a few “variably functioning” bathrooms just a few blocks from the hospital. One or two visiting internal medicine residents from IU lived with the team leaders at a time. Among the residents during that year was Dr. Kara Wools-Kaloustian, now director of research for the IU Center for Global Health Equity and incoming AMPATH Kenya Executive Site Director.

Dr. Kelley recalls weekly trips to the phone company to persuade them to establish phone service to IU House. “We did eventually get the phone and subsequently a fax machine!”

“The experience in Eldoret was just wonderful,” said Dr. Kelley who recalled monthly lunches with Dean Mengech and he and Loraine hosting weekly Wednesday teatime with the students. “It was just a fun relaxed time with the students. There would often be a medical topic, but then as an icebreaker we would ask them how do they make a perfect cup of Kenyan tea? And the diversity of that was amazing.”

“The patients and working with the medical students were always the highlights,” he said. He shared a situation when the students did not want to reveal an HIV diagnosis to a prominent community member, so they told him he had liver disease to avoid delivering bad news. “I told them that was dishonest and we will tell him the bad news. So we all went together to the bedside. I think progressively there was an expectation that there would be just an open dialogue and honesty with the patient.”

Diarrhea and respiratory diseases were the most common illnesses on the wards during his time in Kenya. For the IU trainees, the experience provided exposure to conditions such as heart murmurs and severe liver diseases that they didn’t have the opportunity to experience in the US. But Dr. Kelley also recalled the agony and frustration of watching patients die because life-saving equipment was unavailable.

After serving as team leader in Kenya, Dr. Kelley stayed engaged in global health education at IU School of Medicine and coordinated vaccinations for faculty, students and others who were traveling to Kenya and other international destinations.

“Charlie and I can pause and ponder as only the two of us can on a professional life that finds a common thread between Afghanistan, Marion County General Hospital and Kenya,” reflected Dr. Mamlin who spent more than 20 years living and working in Kenya with his wife Sarah Ellen. “In both the US and abroad, countless lives have been saved, faculty careers have found fulfilment and medical students have lifted their horizons.”

“Charlie always showed up and I have never seen him upset. He rolls with the punches, and I think a lot of that goes back to his faith. He has been a mentor and leader for so many medical school students and residents and a sounding board for me,” said Dr. Einterz who served as the inaugural director of the IU Center for Global Health Equity and executive director of the AMPATH Consortium for more than a decade.

Dr. Kelley says a strong personal faith provided the foundation for his and Loraine’s careers and lives. “You are given gifts from God and they're not for us to keep, but to use.”

Sarah Ellen and Joe Mamlin, Bob and Lea Anne Einterz and Loraine and Charlie Kelley at an event earlier this year.