About Plenary Speakers

Dr. Parsa is an Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Medical Education for the Department of Emergency Medicine, Paul L Foster School of Medicine, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso, where he and his pediatrician wife have served as the CMDA campus advisors for over 13 years.

As an active member of the Samaritan's Purse DART teams, Dr. Parsa has served with SP in Iraq, Bangladesh, Haiti, Ecuador and Ukraine, and also in Kenya with the SP World Medical Mission branch. Prior to El Paso, Dr. Parsa and his family served as long term missionaries with Pioneers at Rumginae Hospital in Papua New Guinea. A California native, he completed his emergency medicine residency in El Paso, his MD at Creighton and his BA at UCSD.

After serving as Hope Christian Health Center’s first CEO from 2013 to 2015, God brought Steve Flores back to Hope again in 2018. Prior to working at Hope, Steve operated clinics in Los Angeles’ Skid Row, where he directed a team of outreach workers, case managers and psychiatrists, collaborating with L.A. County, the California Department of Developmental Services and the Social Security Administration to provide benefits for the homeless and underserved.

He previously opened and operated a clinic as the Clinic Administrator, and was accountable for providing operations management as a Director of Clinic Operations for a primary care clinic staffed by 54 people. He has also worked as a clinic Community Outreach Director and Communication Director.

Earlier in his career, Steve worked as a General Manager for a major telecommunications corporation, managing a $15 million annual budget and leading nearly 200 technicians, 25 front-line managers, and six area managers, across three divisions. At another telecommunications company, Steve was an Area Manager, where he managed and led 22 supervisors and 275 technicians. In each position, Steve improved service levels and was rated very highly across a number of indicators.

Steve also served in the United States Air Force from 1976-1980

Rick Donlon grew up in New Orleans and graduated from Texas Christian University in 1986. He completed medical school at LSU-N.O., and a combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics residency at the University of Tennessee, Memphis. In 1995 he and three medical school classmates opened a primary-care health center in Memphis’ most medically underserved neighborhood. The work eventually grew to include eight health centers, three dental clinics, and a family medicine residency program—providing over 170,000patient visits annually.

Beginning in 2003, many of the medical and dental providers, including Dr. Donlon, moved into the underserved communities where they work. In those same low-income settings, they’ve planted over a dozen house churches. That house church network has subsequently sent dozens of long-term medical missionaries to North Africa, Central and South Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Horn of Africa.In September of 2020, Dr. Donlon became the Memphis Area Director for the Christian Medical and Dental Associations (while continuing to practice medicine half time).Physicians, dentists, and other healthcare workers who’ve trained with Dr. Donlon inMemphis have started or joined similar ministries in low-income communities across the US. Dr. Donlon, his wife Laurie, and their seven children live in the Binghampton neighborhood where he serves as an elder in the house church network.

Rebecca has been a nurse for over 30 years, and in the hospital setting, was part of the ECMO Team and Transport Team, as well as an Educator, Charge Nurse, and Manager. Her master’s and doctoral research focused on pediatric end-of-life care. She started teaching at California Baptist University (CBU) in 2010 and for the past 12 years, has focused on serving vulnerable populations in the community. She was a co-author of the culture and strategies section of Christian Global Health in Perspective, a 10-week course available for people as they prepare for missions. She has written and co-authored new curriculum and programs at CBU. She teaches courses such as Global Health, Transcultural Nursing, Leadership, and Curriculum Development. She loves to teach and mentors students both in the classroom, as an advisor in the doctoral programs, and beyond into the community. She trains with and leads teams of students to serve cross-culturally on academic service-learning opportunities, where students learn to integrate their faith with their discipline.  She is also a volunteer at her church, serves on professional boards, and participates in a variety of community activities.

During his fourth year of medical school, he volunteered for two months at Tenwek Hospital in Kenya where he met CEO Dr. Ernie Steury and Medical Director Dr. David Stevens. During his third year of surgical residency, God brought Mike’s high school sweetheart Pam back into his life, and they married in August 1991. A few months later, they traveled to Kenya and Tenwek Hospital in 1992 for two months where both enjoyed getting to know the Tenwek community while Mike was immersed in surgical care in a busy surgery referral center in rural Africa.

Mike completed a general surgery residency at Methodist Hospital in 1993 and then joined Southwestern Medical Clinic, a group in Southwest Michigan dedicated to global healthcare missions. Former CMDA and ICMDA president Dr. Bob Schindler and his wife Marian mentored Mike and Pam until their departure for Tenwek in 1996. Mike was board certified in general surgery in 1995 while working with Southwestern.

Mike was drawn to the orthopedic surgery service as Tenwek had no long-term bone surgeon. He was also named Medical Director in mid-1997. Tenwek grew remarkably during Mike’s tenure as surgeon and medical director to a clinical staff of over 80 physicians and clinical officers and more than 700 total staff. Training programs for interns, family medicine, general surgery and orthopedics were also developed and launched during those years.

Mike and Pam left for Kenya in August 1996 with two small children and added two more while at Tenwek Hospital: Steven, Melody, Kayla and Ashley.

In 2015, Dr. David Stevens invited Mike to consider returning to the U.S. to assume the role of CMDA Executive Vice President. After seven months of prayer and seeking counsel from mission leaders, mentors and close friends, Pam and Mike decided to leave their Kenya home and mission life of 20 years and moved to Bristol, Tennessee in July 2016. Mike has counted it an amazing privilege to serve alongside David Stevens and Gene Rudd and all the national CMDA staff for nearly four years. In September 2018, after an eight-month CEO search process, the Board of Trustees asked Mike to become the next CEO of CMDA and he began September 1, 2019, when Dr. Stevens stepped down. Mike’s life verses are from 2 Timothy 1:6-7: “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you…for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (ESV). To God be the glory, great things He has done!