National Volunteer Week Meet Dr. Gregorio Delgado
A former student at the University of Trujillo Medical School, Dr. Delgado specialized at Georgetown University and decades later returned to Trujillo to support Project HOPE.
As part of National Volunteer Week we are highlighting one of our many outstanding volunteers every day this week!
Meet Dr. Gregorio Delgado
Dr. Gregorio Delgado, from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, is an OB-GYN at the Temple University School of Medicine Clinical Campus. Since the spring of 2009, Dr. Delgado has been volunteering with Project HOPE to help support the educational and clinical mission of the National University of Trujillo School of Medicine in Trujillo, Peru. Dr. Delgado, originally from Peru, was a student at the University of Trujillo Medical School and then went on to specialize as an OB-GYN at Georgetown University. Decades later, he returned to Trujillo to help Project HOPE find a way to support the University. In 2009, he, along with Drs. Archie Golden and Burtt Richardson, taught and mentored students at the Medical School, worked with local counterpart faculty to develop curriculum, provided consultation to the State of La Libertad regarding in-service training of family physicians, and helped plan for the establishment of a Department (or Institute) of Family and Community Medicine. To this day, Dr. Delgado remains a HOPE volunteer and strong advocate, offering his time to continue to work on the partnership.
Dr. Delgado’s selfless dedication and service in this area of need is so important. Peruvian Ministry of Health representative, Dr. Henry Rebaza, stated, “Since what Project HOPE did 50 years ago (recalling the SS HOPE’s original visit to Trujillo in May 1962, for a 10-month stay where HOPE staff and volunteers helped the University of Trujillo establish the first University Hospital and School of Nursing,) there have been some gains, but now we need to focus on new opportunities. We need our doctors to succeed, as Dr. Delgado succeeded in the U.S. The region is willing to join forces in supporting this initiative.”
Dr. Delgado remains dedicated to this work. “Everyone is supportive,” he says. “I was in medical school in Trujillo when the SS HOPE anchored in my college town back in the ‘60s. Needless to say, this enriched my medical training and improved the health care for the population in Peru. I spent my professional life in academic medicine in the U.S. because of my profound gratitude to Project HOPE and thus I decided to become a volunteer.”
Volunteering for HOPE in Trujillo, Dr. Delgado also has also experienced how HOPE programs have impacted others’ lives. “On one of my trips to Trujillo, a man was shining my shoes and, upon learning that I was a HOPE volunteer, he developed tears in his eyes,” he says. “The man took my hands and said ‘thank you, because the Hospital Ship HOPE saved my little girl’s life…we baptized our daughter and named her Hope.’ Later, I found out many children in town were named Hope during those years.”