Smith Scholar Spotlight

Richard Brown, M.D.

A simple college career aptitude test steered Richard Brown, M.D., from ministry to medicine. But by working as a medical missionary in Africa for nearly 40 years, the Smith Scholar has enjoyed the best of both worlds.

Brown, a Norfolk native and University of Richmond graduate, attended the University of Virginia School of Medicine for four years with help from a Florence L. Smith Medical Scholarship. His scholarship was deferred a year while he studied philosophy in Germany on a Fulbright Fellowship. Brown graduated from medical school in 1963 and earned a Masters of Public Health degree from Harvard Medical School.

Brown joined the Public Health Service and moved to Africa in 1967. Within a few years he and his wife Judith, an anthropologist, became medical missionaries. The Browns spent 35 years working in Zaire, Haiti and Kenya and raising their two daughters, who now also work in world missions. When the Browns first moved to Africa they dealt mainly with malaria, tuberculosis, malnutrition and family planning. “I first saw AIDS in the mid-1980s. It has blossomed beyond my wildest dreams,” Richard Brown says.

Although officially retired and living in Norfolk, the Browns return to Nazareth Hospital in Kenya twice a year to volunteer with an AIDS project they founded. The program of treatment, prevention and education is funded by the U.S. government and the United Nations. Each week 25 hospital staff members help about 500 patients. In addition, Brown volunteers with Physicians for Peace. His daughter, Susan, also is a physician and Smith Scholar making the Browns the first multi-generational Smith Scholar family.

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