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Where Are They Now? Penny Dawson has spent her entire career in Nepal ¥ dispensing care 3 7 io ig ie) Penny Dawson at her home in Nepal. When Penny Dawson graduated from Port Perry High School in 1973, everyone predicted a great future for her. A top student and a hard worker with an en- gaging personality, she entered Waterloo University and graduated with a double honours degree in Biology and Chemistry. Penny then enrolled in medical school at McMaster University. “During my years in medical school,” she says, “I took every possible opportunity to travel and did elec- tives in Trinidad, Sri Lanka and the UK, as well as northern Ontario. I was pretty sure that I wanted to travel and practice medicine overseas.” Ona sunny Friday in June 1981 she finished her intern- ship and on the following Monday left for Nepal. The hospital where she began her practice was a small, very rural hospital in the Himalayas. It had been built through assistance and funding provided by Sir Edmund Hillary, one of the first men to conquer Mount Everest. Penny explains, “Sir Ed, as his friends in Nepal refer to him, wanted to give something back to the local people, the Sherpas, and built numerous schools and health posts and two hospitals in the Everest region of Nepal. The place where I worked was Khunde Hospital, which is located in a small vil- lage (probably about 50 households then) sitting at an altitude of 12,800 feet above sea level, in the shadow of the world’s most beautiful mountains. A Canadian charity, the Sir Edmund Hil- lary Foundation, supported us and made this opportunity possible.” Khunde Hospital had a network of seven village health workers, local people, usually female, who had received basic health training and medical supplies Please turn to page 8 iff o/ 8 FOCUS - JANUARY 2009