VanRooyen earns promotion at Johns Hopkins University

By Rhonda Westfall

Mike VanRooyen, a former St. Johns resident and alumnus of St. Johns High School, was recently promoted to professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Johns Hopkins University.

He is the son of Carolyn VanRooyen and the late Trudy and Joe VanRooyen of St. Johns.

Dr. VanRooyen has received numerous commendations and accolades in recent years, primarily related to his humanitarian efforts as the director of the Center for International Emergency Disaster and Refugee Studies (CIEDRS).

He currently has a team in Baghdad determining the needs for health rehabilitation, following a trip to Iraq this past January. CIEDRS also has teams working in Palestine, North Korea, Afghanistan and other countries.

Dr. VanRooyen has provided briefings for the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate on the reconstruction of healthcare in Iraq, and is the recent recipient of the "Pride in Profession Award," given by the American Medical Association.

He is accompanying Cardinal McKerrick on a trip to China where he will meet with the Ministry of Health to discuss how to improve emergency health systems amid the SARS epidemic.

Dr. VanRooyen earned his B.S. in 1984 from Michigan State University, and received his M.D. in 1988 from Wayne State University in Detroit. He began residency training at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1988, completing the Emergency Medicine Residency Program in 1991.

In 1996, he completed a Research Fellowship at Harvard University School of Public Health, and received an M.P.H. from the University of Illinois School of Public Health.

Dr. VanRooyen has written numerous papers, focusing primarily on the reconstruction of health systems particularly in the post conflict setting, and developing educational programs in emergency care, disaster relief, and humanitarian assistance.

He has described the delivery and restoration of medical resources in war torn areas such as Bosnia, Rwanda, Somalia, Kosovo, and most recently the Palestinian Territories and Iraq, and developed assessment methods for emergency health systems reconstruction which were tested in several countries.

Dr. VanRooyen edited the definitive text for field health providers, "Emergent Field Medicine," published in 2001. It received widespread acceptance by field healthcare personnel, and has had very positive reviews from major journals such as Academic Emergency Medicine and Wilderness Medicine. He is currently working on co-editing "Disaster Medicine," a definitive text on domestic disaster planning and response, to be published in 2005.

One of the major accomplishments of Dr. VanRooyen's career is the creation of CIEDRS, which has total grant funding of $11.4 million and provides academic support and technical services for organizations working in conflict and disaster settings in over 25 countries, including all major war torn areas. CIEDRS has a strong presence in policy and program decisions among the international relief community, and has faculty in the White House, USAID and the CDC. It is currently the largest academic center of its kind in the field of humanitarian assistance, and is widely recognized as a key institutional presence in international relief.

Aside from his duties as the Director of the CIEDRS program, Dr. VanRooyen serves as the Medical Coordinator of Samaritan's Purse International Relief, and as a consultant for several agencies including the World Health Organization, USAID, JCAHO International, the International Rescue Committee. He was recently part of a research mission to Iraq with the Center for Economic and Social Rights.

In nominating VanRooyen for the professorship at Johns Hopkins, the chairperson of the department cited his service as being "exemplary," noting the multiple situations in which he placed his own life at risk in unstable countries like Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, Bosnia, Somalia, Kosovo, North Korea, Palestine and Iraq. He has also worked in responding to natural disasters in Honduras, Mozambique, and Turkey.