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Patricia Woods

Vice President, Program Management

Patricia joined MedSend as Grant Administrator in August of 2018, working with new grant applicants who live and trained in the US and are called to serve as healthcare missionaries around the world. She also works with the National Scholar Program, supporting MedSend’s international partners and working with residency program directors in Africa and Asia. Patricia is passionate about supporting healthcare workers and helping them get to the mission field and thrive. She is also passionate about welcoming and resettling refugees and immigrants in the Queen City (Charlotte, NC) where she volunteers as a mentor, ESL teacher and tutor to refugees and immigrants. She is currently completing her master’s degree in Missionary Care and Christian Counseling at Columbia International University (CIU). She has an MBA from Queens University, Charlotte and a Coaching Certificate from CoachU. Patricia is a Boston native and lives in SC raising her two youngest children, now teenagers, who were adopted from China as babies.

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.