Severance Hospital said that it recently presented the 2023 Avison Global Leadership Award to Zimbabwean surgeon, Allan Ngulube.

Every year, Severance Hospital honors the service spirit of its founder, Dr. Oliver R. Avison, by selecting one foreign medical doctor who was trained at Yonsei University Health System (YUHS) and showed a life of service.

This year's recipient, Allan Ngulube, is a surgeon from Zimbabwe. Ngulube trained in endoscopic surgery and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) at Severance Hospital for three months in 2018. 

He then returned to Zimbabwe and began working at Mpilo Central Hospital, the second largest national hospital in Zimbabwe with around 1,000 beds, in the city of Bulawayo. However, the hospital did not have any endoscopic equipment. 

In 2019, an endoscope was donated from abroad, but it had only a light source and no endoscope tube. Ngulube didn't give up. In 2021, he applied for and received $5,000 from Severance Hospital’s Avison global health project grant.

Ngulube purchased a used endoscope, repaired it to connect to the light source donated two years earlier, and began using it. 

Last year, he performed 161 endoscopic procedures and surgeries. Ngulube was recognized for not giving up in the face of difficult circumstances and for faithfully caring for the people in his community.

"I am delighted and grateful to have received the Avison global health project grant and now to be honored with the Avison Global Leadership Award," said Ngulube. "While this award is for me as an individual, I believe it is a recognition of all the Mpilo Central Hospital staff who serve patients under difficult conditions and circumstances."