Plenary Speakers

Casey and Deanna Aman are medical trainees with experience navigating their relationship through different stages of long medical training. Casey is a senior rheumatology fellow at Rush Medical Center, and Deanna is a 7th year MD/PhD candidate at the University of Illinois Chicago. Besides actively participating within their programs, they enjoy the amenities of the Chicago suburbs for raising their toddlers and providing an abundance of date night activities. They are expecting their third child and feel particularly grateful for family, friends, church community, and even work accommodations to juggle work and life in this busy season.

Having experienced homelessness and substance use himself, Mr. Anderson is now ministering to persons experiencing homelessness at Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago, a shelter serving 600 people. Mr. Anderson is now employed by Lawndale Christian Health Center as a Peer Support Specialist/Respite in Lawndale’s Medical Respite Program at PGM.

Dr. Armistead trained at the Medical College of Virginia and Truman East Family Medicine Residency in Kansas City. From 1999–2015, he and his family lived in Pakistan, providing medical care at Bach Christian Hospital, with 18 months at Kanad Hospital in the United Arab Emirates when security conditions deteriorated. Since returning to the U.S., Dr. Armistead has taught family medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) School of Medicine and maintained a private practice. Today he serves part-time with CMDA at VCU and he is Dean of Faculty at the Institute for International Medicine (INMED). A recipient of teaching awards, he is passionate about professional, moral, and spiritual formation. He and his wife, JoAnn, have three grown sons.

Hannah Chow- Johnson is a Christian who happens to be a pediatrician. She graduated from the University of Illinois college of medicine and competed pediatrics residency at Loyola. She became a believer through Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, and has been a member of CMDA since medical school.  She is the Chicago CMDA chair and a GHO (global health outreach) leader to El Salvador, and a Bible Study Fellowship leader.  She has a passion for short term missions, teaching and mentoring, traveling, piano, and myriad crafts. She lives in Elmhurst with her husband, 3 children, and 3 cats. 

Rev. Doug Christgau served as outreach pastor in three churches from 1985-2019. During this time these churches sent 40 long-term missionaries and doubled or tripled their missions giving. Doug has led 100+ short-term mission trips in 40+ countries. Doug is the Global Ambassador for MedSend, an agency that gets health care missionaries to the field by paying their educational debt and keeps them on the field through member care specific for health care professionals. Doug has presented health care missions in 50+ schools. He has spoken at various church mission events and the Global Missions Health Conference in Louisville KY.

Dr William Crevier is a board-certified internist and pediatrician and is the founder of two faith-based Christian health centers on Chicago’s south side. He now works in his independent practice providing primary care to people of all ages. He is passionately interested in help Christian students and medical residents training in the health profession to understand how to: (1) provide whole person care, including spiritual care from a Biblical perspective; (2) develop a differential diagnosis for any medical problem in any medical patient; how to provide evidence-based medicine; and (3) witness the joy of providing Christ centered care.

Scott Dooley, MD is the Associate Director, Center for Advancing Healthcare Missions (CAHM is a
division of CMDA). Scott is a family medicine physician. He served as a missionary for 16 years
in Papua New Guinea, serving 9 years as the CEO/Hospital Administrator. Since returning to the
USA in 2019, he has worked as a physician, medical director, and part time administrator. Scott
is also on CMDA’s Christian Healthcare Executive Collaborative leadership team. He and his wife,
Gail (RN, and Christian life coach) also love to do coaching, mentoring, and leadership
development. They are proud parents of 3 adult daughters.

Thomas is the Director of Global Health Strategies at International Mission Board, in Richmond, VA. His undergraduate studies were at Florida Southern College (BS in Biology), and he went on to obtain his MD from University of Alabama School of Medicine and his MPH (epidemiology) from UAB School of Public Health. His pediatric residency training was completed at Children’s Hospital of Alabama. He worked in a majority world context in the Far East for 26 years, and has now been overseeing global health strategies for a major mission sending organization where he helps oversee and coordinate the work of hundreds of healthcare missionaries working cross-culturally. He has unique insight into what it takes to prepare for effective service in this context. 

Dr. Huggett serves as Family Physician and Medical Director of Mobile Health at Lawndale Christian Health Center in Chicago. Dr. Huggett and teammates provide wholistic on-site health care services for residents of 40 homeless shelters in Chicago, working to implement Spirit-led innovative care, including public health initiatives and respite care to improve the health of residents of underserved communities.

In 1998, A POWERFUL CALL of God led Greg Kelley from a successful career in the insurance industry, to the front lines of full-time ministry. Since then, he has served as the CEO of “Unknown Nations,” whose primary objective is to impact unreached people groups with the good news of Jesus Christ. Greg has traveled to more than 65 countries as an advocate for bringing the gospel to the billions of people whose souls hang in the balance because they have yet to hear the precious message that Jesus saves! He is the author of the best-selling mission book Last Four Words: Make Jesus Known to the Ends of the Earth which stresses the growing disparity in global gospel access.  

A graduate of Western Michigan University, Greg was honored as the MVP of their 1991 football team. Following his love for the Lord Jesus, his greatest passion is his family, which includes his wife, Kathy, their children, and grandchildren. Greg enjoys golf, snowboarding, college football, and anything with his family! Greg and Kathy call Byron Center, Michigan home.

Greg Kirschner has enjoyed his career in Family Medicine residency education, serving as faculty, associate director, and program director at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, IL. Participation in short medical missions with wife Dr. Carolyn Kirschner (GYN Oncology) would lead into full-time missionary service with SIM in Jos, Nigeria from 1995-2004.  Greg served as Program Director of the Family Practice residency at ECWA Evangel Hospital while Carolyn cared for women with Vesicovaginal Fistula and their 4 kids.  Since return to U.S. setting, Greg regularly returns to Nigeria to support colleagues in Family Medicine education. In 2022 Greg transitioned to his current part-time faculty role at the Lawndale Christian Family Medicine Residency in Chicago. The Kirschners are blessed with 10 grandchildren! 

Eric Kroner, his wife Mollie, and their three sons Quincy, Emmett, and Nicholas have served in rural Chad, Africa since 2011. Their primary ministry has been building authentic loving relationships for Jesus, community health, and raising/educating their boys. Among other things, medical work has included teaching hygiene and sanitation, dental extraction and training clinics, village schistosomiasis treatment clinics, teaching first-aid for motorcycle taxi drivers, and exploring how traditional practices impact access to modern health systems. Both Eric and Mollie have also enjoyed serving in member care and leadership roles. 

Nana Afua Kusi is a third-year medical student at Northwestern University, where she is learning to care for patients with both curiosity and compassion. Her Christian faith grounds her understanding of medicine as an avenue to live out God’s call. Nana Afua earned her degree in computational biology and genomics from Washington University in St. Louis, then completed a post-baccalaureate research fellowship at the National Institutes of Health before attending medical school. She is passionate about using computational and genomic tools to advance precision medicine and improve cardiovascular outcomes. Outside of medicine, Nana Afua is the currently reigning Miss Chicago USA and uses her platform to encourage other women to pursue careers in medicine.

eff and Janet Leman served with SIM in South Asia from 2001-2010, working as a doctor and nurse at a rural mission hospital. The returned unexpectedly from the field in 2010 to care for the medical needs of aging parents. Jeff is a family physician who has spent most of his career invovled with family medicine residency education. Janet is a nurse currently working in an ambulatory family medicine clinic. They are currently working to serve the medical missions community through member care conferences and the CMDE conference providing education and wholistic care to familes serving overseas. 

Jeff and Janet live in Morton, IL. They have four adult children and they enjoy reading, traveling, and spending time outdoors.  

Paul K. Lim is a pediatric plastic surgeon based in Thailand as a missionary with Global Outreach International. He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of Minnesota Medical School. Dr. Lim received both a B.S. in Medicine as well as an M.D. from the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University through the Honors Program in Medical Education (HPME). He has been an attending plastic surgeon for twenty years including ten overseas as a missionary in Ethiopia, North Africa, and for the past two years Thailand. He has written three book chapters on plastic surgery in austere settings, two of which were about cleft palate. As far as imposter syndrome, he is grateful to have discovered foundational truths which have helped to substantially reduce the anxiety associated with it and so is eager to share his discoveries with others. 

Bob Mason is adjunct faulty at Loma Linda University School of Medicine in Loma Lina, CA.  Mason  received his BA in Psychology from Mississippi State University and his MDiv from International School of Theology  He has taught spiritual care in healthcare setting nationwide. 

Dr. Louisa Olushoga is Medical Director of Psychiatry at Lawndale Christian Health Center on the West Side of Chicago, where she works in a collaborative model with psychiatric nurse practitioners and non-psychiatric primary care providers to deliver integrated, compassionate, Spirit-led psychiatric care to not only clinic-based patients but also persons experiencing homeless with on-site care at several Chicago shelters since 2021. Completing her psychiatry residency at the University of Chicago and the Women’s Psychiatry fellowship at Northwestern, Dr. Olushoga lectures nationally and also mentors students and medical residents to improve wholistic mental health care in underserved populations, to work through collective trauma, and to emphasize psychiatric diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up care. 

Lisa Peng is a family medicine doctor in Harvey, IL. She received her undergraduate degree from Yale University, her medical degree from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and her fellowship degree in Maternal Child Health at West Suburban Medical Center. She has been practicing family medicine at Family Christian Health Center since 2002. Dr. Peng is passionate about providing excellent medical care that communicates in word and deed the love and gospel of Jesus Christ. She is committed to providing compassionate, holistic, and patient-centered care. Her joys include spending time in the Word, with her family, napping, and exercising.  

Pinto

Dr. Redican was first drawn to medicine with a dream of doing medical mission work abroad, and she has had many opportunities to encourage and partner with long term missionaries in various places over the years.  After finishing training in Family Medicine in Ventura CA, she completed a Maternal Child Health Fellowship, practicing high-risk obstetrical care.  God unexpectedly opened her heart for the next generation of physicians, particularly in urban medicine settings and the West Side of Chicago, where she helped start Family Medicine program at Lawndale Christian Health Center’s, and currently resides and serves as the Associate Program Director.

As APD of a Family Medicine Program, Dr. Redican has the privilege of spearheading the program’s didactic curriculum and recruiting the next generation of physicians, enjoying many interactions with medical students.

Jonathan Spenn serves as the Dental Missions Mobilizer for CMDA USA.  A member of CMDA since dental school, he has been a part of CMDA’s dental team since 2023.  He participates in several international mission trips each year.  In addition to international travel, his role with CMDA also includes campus visits to U.S. dental schools as well as attending various dental/missions conferences.  Dr. Spenn enjoys opportunities (both domestic and international) to share the love of Christ through dentistry. 

Spenn

Ben Watt recently graduated family medicine residency at Lawndale Christian Health Center, where he currently works. He has been sustained and shaped by Christian communities along the way, from an evangelical upbringing and Catholic college in western Pennsylvania, to local congregations and peer groups in med school and residency. Before starting the transition to attending last summer, he also got to take a trip with fellow healthcare volunteers from his home city to Ethiopia. He lives on the West Side and is a member of Boulevard Presbyterian Church. For leisure he likes walks, runs, and reading groups.