Dr. Samuel Mampunza, Vice President of the Protestant University of Congo and founding Dean of its Medical School, will deliver the keynote address at the Congo Mission Network Conference. He will speak Thursday, Sept. 29 at 3 p.m. ET.The conference will be at Myers Park Presbyterian Church. You can attend the conference in person or join in virtually at no charge. But you must register either way. Please click here.
Over the last three decades, Dr. Mampunza has served virtually all levels of university administration from division to department chair, vice-dean, dean, and vice president. On the health program and service delivery side, he has worked for over four decades as a physician, clinical director, director/coordinator of multiple national health service delivery programs, and director of the Ministry of Health Cabinet for the DRC. He serves as a member of the board of directors and vice-president of SANRU, an NGO affiliated with the protestant churches in Congo and one of the first organizations in DR Congo to implement Primary Health Care activities.
Through these positions, Dr. Mampunza has developed a keen sense of both the current and future health care needs of the Congolese population and beyond. Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) is experiencing a rapid demographic and epidemiologic transition. While the health care delivery system in the region is barely keeping up with infectious, maternal, and neonatal conditions, the rising burden of non-communicable diseases including cancers has exposed how ill equipped and ill-prepared countries in SSA, especially those in central Africa are in terms of the current health needs of their population.
Over the past 16 years, as dean of the faculty of medicine at the University of Kinshasa, one the largest medical schools in the region and a public institution, Dr. Mampunza has been instrumental is supporting and creating more training capacity for health care workers in Central Africa, helping launch the first private medical school in Cameroon at Université des Montagnes, and leading the development of the faculty of medicine and pharmacy at the Congo Protestant University in Kinshasa, a private Christian university that Presbyterian missionaries helped establish in 1959.
Dr. Mampunza has been published some twenty-five times in various medical journals, has won many awards, and is a leader in the healthcare field in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
