When his youngest child entered college, Theodore M. Myers could have started down the road toward a relaxing retirement. In-stead, he spent the next 25 years volunteering in medical clinics around the world.
Myers, ’45, MD ’48, of San Mateo, died May 11, at 83. Born in San Francisco, he graduated from Stanford Phi Beta Kappa and served in the Air Force during the Korean War. He was a Bay Area physician and psychiatrist who, in 1962, worked aboard Project Hope, a converted Navy hospital ship. Two decades later, when all five children were out of the house, he and his wife, Peggy, committed themselves to international relief work. Peggy, a photographer, accompanied Myers on his trips, documenting the volunteer work.
Their first trip was to Sudan, where 400,000 Ethiopian refugees had fled. Myers returned a year later as a volunteer consultant to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which aids refugees around the world. Myers made more than 10 trips to Ethiopia, establishing village-based medical programs throughout Gondar province and creating a clinic in Addis Ababa that continues to provide care for 23,000 Ethiopian Jews who have migrated from the countryside. In Cuba, Myers established a Havana pharmacy and started a consulting program that brings American academic doctors to visit with Cuban physicians and discuss advances in medicine. In Russia, he formed a program offering medicine to elderly members of Jewish communities. For 13 years, he conducted an international conference in Russia, giving American and Russian physicians an opportunity to confer.
Survivors: his wife of 57 years; three daughters, Barbara, Melanie and Jennifer; two sons, James, ’86, MS ’88, and Marc; and a brother, Maxwell, ’44.
