Dr. Sylvia Campbell is a Tampa surgeon who has spent decades helping the medically needy in the Tampa Bay region and around the world. Campbell discussed her work on Tuesday (Oct. 17) on WMNF WaveMakers with Janet and Tom.
The first female general surgeon in Hillsborough County, Campbell ran her own private practices for decades while juggling volunteer work at at the Judeo-Christian Health Clinic in West Tampa, which each year serves 35,000 working poor who don’t qualify for Medicaid and can’t afford health insurance. She’s also the co-founder of Village Partners International, a non-profit group of medical professionals helping people in Haiti, Uganda and the Tampa bay area. The group’s mission is to “partner with select impoverished world villages to help them help themselves” and to “respect their values, history and abilities. We honor their dignity. We serve as a direct conduit for gifts to positively change villages one life at a time.”
In 1999 Campbell received the Good Samaritan Award from the Florida Medical Association. In 2018, she was inducted into the Hillsborough County Women’s Hall of Fame in recognition of being the county’s first female general surgeon and for her service around the world. Earlier this year, she was inducted into the West Coast Girl Scouts Women of Distinction Hall of Fame.
She seems to be living up to a Winston Churchill quote that once hung on her office wall: “You make a living out of what you get, you make a life out of what you give.”
Listen to the entire conversation by clicking the link below, going to the WaveMakers archives or by searching fhttps://www.wmnf.org/events/wmnf-wavemakers/#or WMNF WaveMakers wherever you listen to podcasts.
