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Sister Helen Marr Mitchell, M.D. Sister-Doctor Helen Marr Mitchell is one of 650 Medical Mission Sisters in 19 nations trying to be present to those in need in the spirit of Jesus the healer. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Sister Helen, "always felt drawn toward other life through curiosity, appreciation, love, and a longing for intimacy." She earned her B.A. in Math at Trinity College in Washington. After working for 2 years as a chemist at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, she attended Albany Medical College. She interned in Pediatrics at Denver Children's Hospital, and completed her residency at Children's Hospital of Washington, D.C. For the next 15 years, Sister Helen worked as a pediatrician in Maine, including 7 years when she served on the clinical faculty for Dartmouth Family Practice Residency. In 1984, she worked as a Project Hope Volunteer to Grenada, and in 1987, she volunteered in Haiti over her Christmas vacation. She joined Medical Mission Sisters in May, 1988. "Internationality - my desire for transcending the barriers and isolation of nationalism - was one of the reasons I chose to join," she explains. Sister Helen spent 3 years in Africa as a pediatrician at our Holy Family Hospitals in Nangina, Kenya, and in Berekum, Ghana. "During my time on staff, I held as a primary goal improving pediatric care and awareness of children's needs, and teaching of the nursing staff," she recalls. "I particularly enjoyed the opportunities and challenges of annually teaching a neonatology segment to the midwifery students at the nursing school."
In 1994, Sister Helen returned to the U.S. to be closer to her parents, who were both ill. She worked as a pediatrician in a Maryland clinic, and received an Education Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics Review and Education Program. Sister Helen joined Sister-Doctor Eileen Catterson, Daughter of Wisdom, in 1998 at the Pineville Children's Clinic, Wyoming County, West Virginia. "This has been a very rewarding involvement in terms of being with the children and adolescents and their parents," says Sister Helen of this economically depressed coal-mining region of the Appalachian Mountains. "I'm here to give good care, to show I care ... and to reflect children's strengths rather than their weaknesses back to their parents," she explains. Educating the families who are her patients is an important part of Sister Helen's work. "Projects to encourage breastfeeding (not much practiced here) and to provide helpful stories for children and parents to read together have had some success," she shares. "I believe in doing what I can to foster growth and development in healthy directions ... doing the very best I can for each child and family in the moment I am with them."
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