In Dr. Tom’s Own Words

A Personal Interview with Dr. Tom Catena

“When you’re a doctor, you want to go where the need is.” – Dr. Tom, on his chosen path

Dr. Tom Catena has been hailed as one of the world’s most renowned missionary doctors, serving as a founder, medical director, and for many years the sole surgeon of Mother of Mercy Hospital – a remote referral hospital in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains. Through civil wars, famines, and great risk to his life when he’s been forced to jump into foxholes to survive, “Dr. Tom” has refused to leave the 400 patients he sees a day for an easier doctor’s life – a figure now nearing 500 daily since the escalation of Sudan’s civil war.

During a brief visit to the United States, Senior Vice President Matt Smith had the rare opportunity to sit down with Dr. Tom Catena for this personal interview. Dr. Tom shares his story from his auspicious beginnings as an engineering student and football player at Brown University, to the journey that led him to choose a calling as a mission doctor in one of the most desolate and underserved areas on earth. You’ll hear how the hospital he began with 80 beds now holds 480, serves three times its usual patient load treating malnourished children in the midst of Sudan’s famine, and how his vision of expansion clinics is bringing health care to people without it. Take a rare look into his personal life with heartwarming updates about his wife and growing family. Learn how the hospital is responding to the worst crisis in Sudan he’s ever seen. And discover how faith and the prayers of supporters sustain him to carry on his mission.

“When you see that kind of courage, that resilience, you think, who am I to complain?… Let’s keep working hard for these people who are suffering.” – Dr. Tom, on the people he serves