The Nuba Mountains of Sudan might be the last place one would expect to see an Ivy League-educated doctor living among the people, but Dr. Tom Setana wouldn’t want it any other way.
Catena, a native of Amsterdam, New York, attended Brown University. He played football and studied engineering.
Yet Catena, a self-described “Cradle Catholic“, joined the evangelical Christian group Campus Crusade for Christ and realized he wanted to devote his life to the mission field. That meant he’d probably have to do something other than engineering—medicine, he thought.
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Undeterred by the time and effort required, Catena took the classes necessary to fulfill medical school admission requirements. He later graduated from Duke University School of Medicine on a scholarship. us Navy,
“In 1999, I was relieved of my duties and training,” he told Fox News Digital in a phone interview from the Nuba Mountains.
Dr. Tom Catena, who is American-born, is the only doctor in the area of Sudan where he works; sometimes he sees hundreds of patients every day. He is always on call and is fueled by his deep faith, he told Fox News Digital in an interview. (African Mission Healthcare)
So he decided he would spend a year doing this work. Mission Medicine in Kenya, Then return to the United States, set up practice, and “get to work.”
After completing his residency and the required year in the Navy, Catena eventually began serving in the mission field.
“If you think Kenya is difficult and challenging, you should see what the situation is like in Sudan.”
“One year turned into two years, then five years,” he said. “And now it’s been almost 25 years since I’ve been in Africa — first seven and a half years in Kenya, then 16 years here in Sudan, in the mountains.”
While Catena was in Kenya, he continued to meet people who were either from Sudan or had worked there.
“They kept saying, ‘If you think Kenya is difficult and challenging, you should see what the situation is like in Sudan,’” he said.
His interest piqued, Catena changed his stance and decided he wanted to go to Sudan. How that would be possible, however, was a different issue.
Here is a picture of the Catena family. From left to right, Naseema, Francis, baby Vincent Moses and Tom. Both children were adopted. (courtesy Dr. Tom Catena)
“I didn’t know anything about Sudan,” he said.
“It was a huge country and there was always a civil war going on.”
Living in Sudan
While in Kenya, Catena met a U.S. Army surgeon named Dede Byrne, who was working there to replace another surgeon who had to leave Kenya for a while. Byrne, now Sr. Dede Byrne, told Catena that she knew a Catholic bishop who was building a hospital in Sudan.
“I took over (the bishop’s) office. I started meeting with him,” Catena said, thus setting the plan in motion. Hospital setting and ultimately their move to Sudan.
The area is almost completely cut off during the rainy season.
In 2008, Catena moved to Sudan and began living there. He married nurse Nasima and recently adopted two sons.
Catena said it would be an exaggeration to say the Nuba Mountains in southern Sudan are “remote.” travel there He said it can take about a week to reach here from the United States, and the last part of the journey is by walking on a dirt road.
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He said the area is almost completely cut off during the rainy season.
“The Nuba Mountains are somewhat similar to Africa as it was 70, 80 or 100 years ago,” he said.
Dr. Tom Catena calls his home in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan the “Catena Compound,” pictured above. (courtesy Dr. Tom Catena)
Catena said that while other African countries “have developed a lot in the last 20, 30 years,” the Nuba Mountains have not.
“They are a bit like Africa has always been,” he said.
series and his family They don’t have running water, they “actually” don’t have central electricity and there’s nothing in their “small compound” that requires electricity.
“It’s a very simple set-up,” he said – with no bathroom, no shower or even a flush toilet.
“We have to take care of everything that comes in our door.”
The Mother of Mercy Hospital in Gidele, Sudan, is the only hospital in an area of more than 1 million people. Catena sometimes sees hundreds of patients a day. He is always on call – because without him, there is no one else.
“We have to take care of everything that comes in our door,” he said.
The hospital has a “limited” laboratory, an x-ray machine and an ultrasound. It is powered by solar panels and a backup generator.
Dr. Tom Catena told Fox News Digital that his patients, pictured here, come to him for all kinds of problems. (courtesy Dr. Tom Catena)
“We don’t have CT scans or MRIs,” he said — so sometimes they have to operate on patients to find out what’s going on internally.
However, he said that lack of modern medical equipment was not the biggest challenge facing the doctors.
‘Truly unbelievable’
Sudan’s fragmented education system left very few trained medical personnel.
Dr. John Fielder, co-founder of African Mission Healthcare, said in a video interview with Fox News Digital from Kenya that when Catena arrived here in 2008, Mother of Mercy Hospital had 15 people working there. (Watch the video at the top of this article, and another below.)
“Tom places great value on every patient he encounters.”
African Mission Healthcare is one of the organizations that provides support to Mother of Mercy Hospital and other similar “mission” hospitals across Africa.
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Fielder said the group helps the hospital “with medications, supplies, training staff, infrastructure and raising funds.”
Fielder said the staff at Catena’s hospital on its opening day consisted of “a few Catholic nuns and Tom and about a dozen local workers.”
“Nobody (except Catena) Education received Above the eighth grade. No one was formally trained in health care.”
In 2024, barely a decade and a half later, “they will have 270 employees and more than 50 formally trained as health workers,” Fielder said. “It’s really incredible. There’s a local training school for students to become physician assistants and midwives.”
“Tom,” Fielder said, “is one of the most committed people I know. He places infinite value on every patient he sees. And that’s the way he acts. He works endlessly. He’s an incredibly talented physician.”
Dr. Tom Catena said the Nuba Mountains are “in a way very similar to Africa as it was, you know, 70, 80 years ago, 100 years ago.” They are still largely isolated from the rest of the country. (courtesy Dr. Tom Catena)
“He works as much as he can to take care of people who are sick and suffering and have no other place to go,” Fielder said.
As for Catena, his strong faith That’s the motivation for everything he does.
“My faith is the only thing that has kept me here,” Catena told Fox News Digital. “I mean, without a doubt, I think if I didn’t have that, I would have abandoned ship a long time ago.”
“I still feel like God is looking after us.”
Catena said his work is difficult and exhausting and “there is so much tragedy involved that it is beyond anyone’s ability to endure it alone.”
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While the Nuba Mountains are largely isolated Big civil war There are still risks and sporadic conflicts in Sudan, she said. And being the only doctor for such a large population means she has to do everything from delivering babies to treating war injuries.
Catena said that despite it all, he and those at his hospital are “very lucky.”
When Dr. Tom Catena arrived in the Nuba Mountains in 2008, the newly established hospital had a staff of 15 people and no trained medical professionals. Now, there are 270 employees and 50 of them are formally trained in medicine. (African Mission Healthcare)
“Ever since I came here in 2008, there have been priests here. So there is mass every day,” he said.
“I think if I didn’t have the opportunity to hear God’s Word every day and receive the sacraments every day, I don’t think I could do it.”
Even with a lifestyle and work environment unimaginable to most people in his profession in the United States, Catena remains firm in his beliefs.
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“God is taking care of everything,” he said. “I know that no matter what happens here, God is here. God is taking care of everything. God is taking care of me.”
“It’s an incredible testament to trust, commitment and compassion.”
And while Catena admits that recently becoming a father has made him “more anxious than ever,” his faith remains.
“I still feel that way god is watching “This is a huge deal for us,” he said.
Fielder agreed, saying the work of Catena and his team is a masterpiece.
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He said, “I’ve said, you know, if you’ve seen the Pieta in Rome, which is an incredible work of art – I think, really, what the team has done in the Nuba Mountains, in the midst of war and poverty and locusts and famine, you know, they’ve really created a beautiful work of art out of stone.”
“And that is an incredible testament to trust, commitment and compassion.”
