Dr. Rick Sacra has served as a medical missionary in Liberia since 1995 at the ELWA Hospital. He serves with the non-denominational Christian mission group SIM. Dr. Sacra initiated the founding of ELWA’s HIV/AIDS counseling and treatment program and has been the Acting Medical Director at ELWA Hospital from 2008 to 2010, and 2018 to present.  From 2010 to 2016, during time in the U.S., he taught residents at the Family Health Center of Worcester, and served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at UMass.

Dr. Rick Sacra grew up in Wayland. He attended Brown University and graduated in 1984 with a degree in Biochemistry and soon after in 1985 he married Deborah Stanton, and they have 3 children. Dr. Sacra earned his M.D. at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 1989. After Family Medicine Residency in Bristol, Tennessee, he worked at the Family Health Center of Worcester from 1992 until 1995.

Since recovering from Ebola Virus Disease in 2014, Dr. Sacra has returned to Liberia to assist the team at the ELWA Hospital, run by SIM. Rick is currently the residency director at Liberia’s first Family Medicine Residency Training Program at ELWA Hospital which opened July of 2017.  Dr. Sacra returned from Liberia on October 3 for a three month stay in the US, and will return to ELWA Hospital in January.

Dr. Rick Sacra’s talk is open to the public and will be held at Trinitarian Congregational Church, at 53 Cochituate Road in Wayland, on Wednesday, October 23 at 7:00pm.