Kwan Kew Lai is a Harvard Medical faculty physician, with a specialty in infectious diseases. She is a disaster relief medical volunteer who has volunteered her medical services all over the world.
Originally from Penang, Malaysia, Lai came to the United States after receiving a scholarship to attend Wellesley. Following her alma mater’s motto of non ministrari sed ministrare, not to be ministered but to minister, she tries to pay it forward.
She volunteered in the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Vietnam, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Nigeria, and Malawi and responded to natural disasters such as the earthquakes in Haiti and Nepal, drought and famine in Kenya and the Somalian border, hurricane in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and the gulf coast and to outbreaks of cholera in Haiti, during the greatest Ebola outbreak in Africa, she treated Ebola patients in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and most recently the COVID pandemic drove her to volunteer at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, New York, the US Virgin Island of St. Croix, and the Navajo Nation.
She also volunteered with the refugees of the Democratic Republic of Congo in Uganda, refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, and the Sub-Saharan Africa on mainland Greece, and in Moria Camp on the Greek Island of Lesvos, and in war-torn South Sudan, Libya, and Yemen. When the crackdown of the Rohingya Muslims by the Myanmar army caused them to flee to Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Lai spent time in the biggest refugee camp in the world.
Lai has received awards for her work, which include being a three-time recipient of the President’s Volunteer Service Award. Wellesley College awarded her the Distinguished Alumna Award and Chicago Medical School, the Distinguished Alumni Service Award.
She is the lead author of many professional publications and presentations in her field. She published two books, the first is Lest We Forget: A Doctor’s Experience with Life and Death during the Ebola Outbreak and the second, Into Africa and Out of Academia: A Doctor’s Memoir. Both are about her time in Africa, her several months of volunteering in the greatest Ebola outbreak in West Africa and the recent one is about her experiences in Africa on and off for a period of seven years in the HIV/AIDS epidemic and in refugee camps for people displaced from war, conflict, and famine.
She paints when she is inspired and exhibits her artwork at the Belmont Art Gallery. She is also a marathon runner.
Publications
New book: “Into Africa Out of Academia: A Doctor’s Memoir”
Book debut: “Lest We Forget: A Doctor’s Experience with Life and Death During the Ebola Outbreak”
Contact info