Vartkes Najarian MD, FACS, FOCS
Founder Medical Outreach
Medical Outreach for Armenians
2008 Recipient

I was born in Beirut, Lebanon on April 4, 1930.  After graduating form the American University of Beirut, School of Medicine, I immigrated to the United States in July, 1957. I received my Orthopedic training at North Western University in Chicago and Mount Sinai Hospital in Cleveland Ohio.  I was in private practice as an Orthopedic Surgeon from 1962-2002, where I held several positions. While in Cleveland, I was the volunteer Physician for West Geauga High School.  I did annual Physical Exams for over 2000 students for fifteen years. As the volunteer school team physician, I attended all their football and soccer games.  I was the volunteer physician, as well, for the Sister’s of Notre Dame Academy.

A visit to Armenia in 1984, turned out to be a life long commitment to serve my ancestral homeland, Armenia.  In 1985, my wife Mary, a registered nurse, and I took arthroscopic instruments to Erevan and started operating and teaching arthroscopic knee surgery.  This was the first in all of the Soviet Union.  Prior to our introduction of arthroscopic knee surgery, the patients would stay 30 days in the hospital for recovery where as with the new technique; the patients would be operated in the morning and sent home in the afternoon.

We sent a ‘pill making machine’, and started to make aspirin tablets to distribute to the indigent and needy patients.  In 1985 my wife Mary and I founded “Medical Outreach.”

On December 7, 1988 the massive earthquake, left 35,000 dead, 450,000 homeless and tens of thousands handicapped.  The State department sent me to Armenia to assess the medical needs of the victims.  My wife and I brought over one hundred children, victims of earthquake to USA who had lost one or more of their extremities for surgeries and prostheses.

In 1990, during the Karabagh War, Mary and I were there working in make shift hospitals, operating in tents and sometimes in the trenches, under the most primitive conditions.

In Los Angeles, Medical Outreach organized 6 telethons and raised over 46 million dollars in funds and donations in kind.  We renovated a 30 bed clinic in Sdepanagerd the capital of Karabagh, with two modern operating rooms.  In Erevan, Medical Outreach renovated a 450 bed hospital with seven operating rooms with the state of the art facilities.  Prior to our renovation, there were 45 patients on each floor with only 1 toilet and with 2 hours of running water each day.  With the renovation, we installed 1 toilet for every 4-5 patients and a reservoir with a pump to provide 24 hour a day running water.  With the help of MAP Int’l., International Aid and Brother to Brother, Medical Outreach has sent to Armenia and Karabagh over 400 containers with medical and surgical supplies.

With Dr. Richard Kasper a Board member of Medical Outreach, we started the Eye Care Center, with today is a monumental project headed by Dr. Roger Hovanesian.  (A 2004 Ellis Island Medal recipient)  With Arthur Halvajian of New Jersey, again a board member of Medical Outreach we started The Children’s Cardiac Center in Erevan, which now is a major Cardiac Center headed by Dr. Hrair Hovagimian.

Mary and I have been to Armenia over 48 times during the 23 years.  We still go to check on the hospital, the doctors, the patients and assess their needs.  We are now refurbishing the hospital with new beds, mattresses, a new operating room table and a sterilizer, which already have been ordered to be shipped to Armenia.

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