Healing the World: Celebrating Dr. Rick Hodes and the JDC Spine Clinic
Dr. Rick Hodes, JDC's Medical Director in Ethiopia, discusses his journey from founding the JDC Spine Program to receiving the Walter P. Blount Humanitarian Award. Learn about his passion for healing and impact on spinal care in Ethiopia.
October 1, 2024
As JDC’s legendary Medical Director in Ethiopia, Dr. Rick Hodes has dedicated his life to treating the sick. When Dr. Hodes founded the JDC Spine Program 18 years ago in Addis Ababa, the region lacked a dedicated spine surgeon and basic medical infrastructure. Today, Dr. Hodes and his team receive hundreds of patients each year, and he has become a world-renowned expert in spinal deformities.
To make these life-changing surgeries and healthcare sustainable for future generations of people in need, JDC is establishing a National Spine Center — under Dr. Hodes’ leadership — in partnership with the Ministry of Health in Ethiopia. A wing of St. Paul Hospital in Addis Ababa will be renovated and equipped to provide state-of-the art surgery and care as well as training to build the capacity of Ethiopian surgeons and other health professionals in spine care.
It’s only fitting, then, that Dr. Hodes, or “Dr. Rick,” as he’s known to his colleagues and patients, should be given this year’s prestigious Walter P. Blount Humanitarian Award. This award, presented by the international Scoliosis Research Society, is granted to an individual who has provided outstanding service for those with spinal deformities, recognizing those who go above and beyond in their field, often in challenging conditions.
In this Q&A, we sit down with Dr. Hodes to discuss this career-defining moment — and what drives his passion for healing the sick.
The Walter P. Blount Award is a remarkable achievement. Tell us how you got here.
My first degree was in geography, and I wasn’t interested in medicine. After living in Alaska and reflecting on my life, I eventually decided the best thing I could do is become a doctor.
You see, I didn’t want to just become a doctor and live in the United States — I had this dream to go overseas and make a difference in the world. I spent a summer in Bangladesh. I spent a winter in South India. I worked with African refugees suffering through famine in Ethiopia. And then, I got a Fulbright Fellowship to teach internal medicine at Addis Ababa University.
I went to Ethiopia in 1985 to teach at the medical school. I intended to spend one year there — and it’s turned into my life.
How did you develop a passion for treating people with spine issues?
In 1999, I was volunteering at Mother Teresa’s mission, and we got an admission of two abandoned orphans with tuberculosis of the spine. One of them had a 90-degree angle in his back; the other, a 120-degree angle. I wanted to help them, but I couldn’t get them care.
I got this idea to adopt them, add them to my American health insurance, and get them surgery in America. But the problem with that is when you adopt an abandoned orphan who doesn’t have any relatives, they become yours for life, and that’s more permanent than anything. I didn’t know what to do.
I was walking along one day and I looked up at the sky. I said to the Almighty, “What do you want me to do?” There was no answer, so I kept on going — and a few days later, I got an instant message from Him and I had this moment of clarity.
“I’m offering you a chance to help these boys,” God told me. “Don’t say no.”
I adopted them, added them to my health insurance, and brought them down to Dallas, Texas, where they had very complicated spine surgery. Another kid came along with a bad back, and I repeated the process. But serial adoption is probably not the answer to spine deformity, so I had to come up with a better solution.
And so the JDC Spine Program developed out of this need?
In 2005, I was in New York and I met Dr. Oheneba Boachie-Adjei — one of the best spine surgeons in the world. We decided we could start working together. Dr. Boachie is originally from Ghana, and he would bring a delegation of international doctors to Ghana to operate on African patients. He agreed to operate on our Ethiopians.
In April of 2006, I established the JDC Spine Program with Dr. Boachie as our surgical partner. We sent our first group, five patients and one staff person, to Accra, Ghana, and they had surgery at Korle-Bu Hospital. Then, we sent another. That year, I got 20 new spine patients. We did 11 surgeries.
The next year, we got more patients and did more surgeries. Eighteen years later, we’re still here — and we’ve helped more than 1,500 children. We have partners in Ghana and India. The continuity is so important. And now we’re helping another NGO to start a pediatric spine program.
Can you describe your operation in Ethiopia? How many people are you serving in any given week?
The JDC Spine Program is really the only place in the country that offers such cutting-edge medical attention and care for people with complex spine deformities. We get over 500 new spine deformity patients every year. Some days we get 8 new patients! In the last three weeks, we’ve done 50 surgeries in Addis Ababa with an international team of doctors, training surgeons from all over Ethiopia. I receive more than 500 new patients each year.
People come to us from all over. One young man boy walked for eight days from Gojjam — a remote region in northwestern Ethiopia — because he didn’t have $20 in bus fare. People come from neighboring countries, too, because they’ve heard that we are doing spine surgery. We are their only hope because nobody else here has been doing spine surgery.
How do you reach people in extreme locations or conditions — people who have no means of transportation and may not even be able to walk?
We leave our offices in Addis Ababa and go into the countryside every month or two. We’ll have several days of training with local doctors and see patients, too. We’ll rent a car and a megaphone and tell villagers we’re ready and willing to help people with spine deformities — anyone with a curved spine is welcome to be evaluated at no cost. Once we even had a local army unit show up to get spine checks!
We do this all over the country, and it’s astounding. Sometimes, we get hundreds of patients, and we even have to extend our stay. One time, I had to return to a town the following week because there were still patients left over. Last year we did the first school screening program for scoliosis in Addis Ababa. Next month we’re doing that again, to raise awareness and collect scientific data.
What’s most rewarding about the work you do?
It’s important for us to heal the world in any way we can, and we’re out here doing that, each and every day.
When I see a kid who’s alive and well because of us, there’s no better feeling.
I just turned 71, and when I was in the clinic on my birthday, I looked up at my staff and I said, “I could have retired years ago. At home in the United States, I could get Social Security. But I’d rather be here in this hospital basement clinic with you guys, doing my life’s work.”
We saw one man who had a son with a severe spine deformity. The son had surgery, and when he stood up for after surgery, for the first time in his life, he was taller than his father. His father saw that and just started crying.
That’s why I do this work.
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