Description:
Text transcribed from caption: PC-46285 PROJECT CONCERN CLARKRANGE, Tenn. --
Dr. James Turpin, a former ministerial student, has become a major
personality in the field of health care. A native of Ashland, Ky., Dr. Turpin
attended Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, a United Methodist
institution, planning to enter the minister. But he found this was not where
he should be. Still wanting to find a place of ministry to the needs of
mankind, the entered Emory’s School of Medicine and earned an M.D. He soon
found his place. While practicing in California, Dr. Turpin became aware of
the medical needs of the people living in Tijuana, Mexico’s, slums, so on
weekends began giving assistance at a small charity clinic there. His
interest in providing medical care for the disadvantaged grew and in 1961 he
founded Project Concern. A year later the first Project Concern out-patient
clinic was established in a disease-infested ghetto of Kowloon, Hong Kong,
where more than 20,000 populated a six-square-block area. That beginning
sparked what is today one of the leading private-sector health-care
organizations in the world. Project Concern treats more than 500,000 persons
annually, providing a full range of medical and dental services to
impoverished people in the U.S. and abroad. It operates four hospitals and 11
clinics in Hong Kong, South Vietnam, Ethiopia, Mexico, in Bisti, N.M., on the
edge of the Navajo Reservation and in Appalachia at Clarkrange, Tenn. While
Dr. Turpin spent the first decade of Project Concern’s existence with
organizations and fund-raising work, by the early 1970s it had become firmly
established and an administrative staff had been selected and headquartered
in San Diego. In 1972, he and his doctor wife, Mollie, assumed medical
directorship of the Appalachian program headquartered in Clarkrange. Four
days each week two white mobile health-care vans ply the narrow, winding
backroads of rural Tennessee bringing medical and dental care to the hill
people. More than 1,000 patients are treated each month through the mobile
vans. At top, Doctors James and Mollie Turpin look over a medical record and
discuss a patient’s needs while other personnel are busy. Dr. Turpin a 10
to 12 hour day. Below, a dental crew, inside a van, work on patients at Pine
Haven, Tenn. The group is training young patients to care for their teeth in
addition to providing treatment. Credit Must Read: RELIGIOUS NEWS SERVICE
PHOTO (DR-GA-11D-74-DS)
Topics:
Dental care--Tennessee., Community health services--Appalachian Region., Rural health services--Appalachian Region., Poor--Medical care., Rural poor--Medical care.