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Kent Brantly

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Kent Brantly
Brantly visiting the White House, September 16, 2014
Born
Indianapolis, Indiana
EducationAbilene Christian University
Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis
Occupation(s)Physician, author, speaker
Years active2009-present
Known forTreating, contracting, and surviving Ebola virus disease
Medical career
ProfessionMedical missionary
FieldMedicine
InstitutionsSamaritan's Purse
AwardsTime Person of the Year

Kent Brantly is an American doctor with the medical mission group Samaritan's Purse. While treating Ebola patients in Liberia, he contracted the virus. He became the first American to return to the United States to be treated for the disease.[1]

Life

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Brantly was born in Indianapolis, the youngest of six children to Jim and Jan Brantly. He is married to Amber Brantly, and they have two children.[2]

Brantly attended Abilene Christian University in Texas, where he earned an undergraduate degree in biblical text in 2003. It was here, at ACU, where he pledged Pi Kappa, a men's social club founded on a deep sense of Christian brotherhood, regardless of which denomination that member belonged to. After leaving ACU, he earned his medical degree from Indiana University School of Medicine (within Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis) in 2009 and completed his family medicine residency and fellowship in maternal child health at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas.[3]

Brantly and his wife served as medical missionaries in Monrovia, Liberia, with World Medical Mission, the medical arm of Samaritan's Purse. After contracting the Ebola virus in summer 2014, he was evacuated to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, where he recovered and was later reunited with his family. He now serves as the medical missions advisor for Samaritan's Purse and lives with his family in Texas.[4]

Brantly's first public speaking engagement after his release from Emory hospital was on October 10, 2014, at his alma mater, Abilene Christian University.[5] In September 2014, he testified at a joint Senate hearing on the Ebola crisis in West Africa and met privately with President Barack Obama at the White House.[6] That month he donated his plasma three times to American Ebola patients.[7]

In 2014, he, along with other medical professionals involved in treating Ebola patients, became Time magazine's Person of the Year.[8][9]

In 2015 Brantly gave the invocation at the National Prayer Breakfast attended by President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.[10]

On July 21, 2015, the Brantlys released a book written with biographer David Thomas titled Called for Life: How Loving Our Neighbor Led Us Into the Heart of the Ebola Epidemic published by WaterBrook Press.[11]

After surviving Ebola, Brantly made the decision to return to Africa for medical missions in 2019. Brantly gave a brief statement of why he decided to return despite his near-death situation of contracting Ebola. Brantly stated:

“It’s been five years of emotional healing and spiritual healing and growth,” the doctor, 38, told The Christian Chronicle in an interview at the Southside Church of Christ in Fort Worth, his family’s home congregation for much of the last decade. “I think we’ve grown and been equipped in ways during this five years that we were not before we went to Liberia.”[12]

References

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  1. ^ Dallas nurse infected with Ebola gets blood transfusion from survivor, Associated Press in Dallas, theguardian.com, Tuesday 14 October 2014 12.33 BST
  2. ^ "The inside story of Ebola patient Dr. Kent Brantly's decision to serve in Liberia". 21 August 2014.
  3. ^ "Fort Worth Doctor in Africa Treated for Ebola". 27 July 2014.
  4. ^ "Ebola patients Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol discharged from hospital". CBS News. 21 August 2014.
  5. ^ "Ebola Survivor Kent Brantly and Wife Visit Abilene Christian University for Homecoming". NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth. 10 October 2014.
  6. ^ AbPhillip (16 September 2014). "Ebola survivor Kent Brantly met with President Obama in the Oval Office". Washington Post.
  7. ^ "Why Blood Transfusions From Ebola Survivor Dr. Kent Brantly Could Help Patients". Student News Daily. 16 October 2014.
  8. ^ Time Person of the Year, The Doctors, The Ebola fighters in their own words, Dec. 10, 2014
  9. ^ Medical Missionaries' Ebola Pullback: No More Kent Brantlys?, Deann Alford/ Nov. 21, 2014
  10. ^ Tryggestad, Erik (2015-02-06). "Dr. Kent Brantly prays at National Prayer Breakfast". Christian Chronicle. Retrieved 2015-02-06.
  11. ^ Nishihara, Naomi (15 July 2015). "'Called for Life': Ebola survivor shares ordeal — his, Africa's — in memoir". The Dallas Morning News. Archived from the original on 17 July 2015.
  12. ^ "Ebola survivor Dr. Kent Brantly returning to Africa as medical missionary".
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