Carol Spears

Dr. Carol Spears

Serving at Tenwek Cardiothoracic Centre in Kenya

Dr. Carol Spears, missionary General Surgeon, has been following God wherever He leads for many years now.  That journey includes serving for many years in Africa at AGC Tenwek Hospital as a General Surgeon and a leader of the PAACS General Surgery Residency Program.  She followed God’s call to serve Muslim people and especially Muslim women by serving 4 and ½ years in the Middle East as a General Surgeon at a Christian Hospital.  Since September 2024, Carol has returned to serving in Kenya at the new Tenwek Cardiothoracic Centre as Manager of Clinical Services. 

Carol is a second career physician, having worked for several years in the business world in the telecommunications industry before following God’s call to go to medical school.  Throughout each phase of life and each new beginning, Carol has seen God’s faithfulness and grace and provision.  Her passion is to tell her own story of God’s work in her life in order to encourage those that God is raising up to continue His kingdom work.

Dr. Carol Spears is a diplomate of the American Board of Surgery and a fellow of the American College of Surgeons.

Flourishing by Design: Imagining Medical Missions for 2040

Our predecessors faithfully built institutions that have served for generations. Our challenge is different. We have inherited those institutions into a world they could scarcely have imagined. Population growth, urbanization, changing disease patterns, financial pressures, conflict, climate shocks, and technological change are reshaping healthcare across low- and middle-income countries.

Drawing on new data about the Christian health ecosystem, strategic consultations with global and African Christian health leaders, and field experience across Africa and Asia, this session explores what it will take for Christian health ministries to flourish by 2040.

Together we’ll imagine what it will take for Christian health ministries to flourish by 2040, strengthening resilient institutions, cultivating exceptional local leadership, and mobilizing a broader range of Christian expertise from medicine and nursing to governance, education, engineering, finance, data science, and technology.

How can Christian health ministries become indispensable partners in building resilient health systems that reflect the compassion and hope of Christ? The legacy of the next generation of medical missions will be measured not only by the number of missionaries sent, but by the resilience, flourishing, and Christ-centered witness of systems they strengthen.