By Marie Mulvenna

Seeking perspective into a physician’s role in developing countries, Thomas P. Dlugos of Atlanta left last week to begin a one year stint at Kitovu Mission Hospital in Masaka. A recent graduate of the University of Notre Dame, where he received his B.S. in biology and chemistry, Tom will assist the Medical Missionaries of Mary, working intensively in the filed of tropical diseases and preventive programs to combat them.

A parishioner of St. Jude’s parish, Tom is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Gerald S. Dlugos, who moved to Atlanta from Cleveland some nine years ago. He is a graduate of St. Pius High School and while a student at Notre Dame spent several summer vacations working as a nursing assistant and orderly in the emergency, intensive care, and central supply units of Piedmont Hospital here. He also worked as a volunteer assistant in the psychiatric ward of St. Joseph’s Hospital in South Bend, Ind. Tom has also studied parasitology and entomoloty.

Mrs. Dlugos relates the background of her son’s volunteer missionary work and says Tom has long expressed an interest in studying tropical medicine and helping the scores of people who need help from the terrible illnesses of a tropical nature. Anxiously awaiting her first letter from Uganda, Mrs. Dlugos states laughingly that her son says he “isn’t going to doctor little old ladies,” adding he is deeply interested in worldwide medicine and hopes to specialize in the field of tropical medicine at Tulane University. His plans call for an eventual return to Africa or Asia as a practicing physician.

At the Kitovu Hospital, the young volunteer will assist in the lab as a biochemist and will work closely under the direction of the resident officer and sister, Dr. Augustus Doyle, a veteran of 25 years’ experience in the African missions.