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OFFICE OF news communications

News Archive

MOSS TWINS NAMED ABC WORLD NEWS PERSONS OF THE WEEK

As the Moss brothers gained the locals' trust as healers, they were able to enter parts of Afghanistan where warlords rule and no American has ever gone. Photo courtesy of the Moss Family and ABC News.

As the Moss brothers gained the locals' trust as healers, they were able to enter parts of Afghanistan where warlords rule and no American has ever gone. Photos courtesy of the Moss Family and ABC News.


Drs. Vince and Vance Moss, twins who graduated from Temple University School of Medicine in 1998, were selected on Friday, February 8, 2008, as ABC World News’ "Persons of the Week."

 

Both surgeons and members of the U.S. Army Reserve, the brothers were recognized by ABC for providing humanitarian medical aid to Afghan civilians -- during their off-duty time at their own cost. The Mosses hired their own intelligence and security, bought their own medical supplies, even chartered their own plane – and when they walked the streets and hospital corridors together, Afghans chanted "Doganagy, Doganagy," Pashto for "same-faced healer."


In January the twins were also honored at the 16th Annual Trumpet Awards, which recognize the accomplishments of Black Americans. Fellow honorees included Halle Berry, Danny Glover, and Chris "Ludacris" Bridges.


The brothers are now on active duty in Iraq and have been given permission by the U.S. State Department to continue their off-duty humanitarian aid. When at home, Vince is a cardiothoracic and trauma surgeon and Vance is a urologist and kidney-transplant surgeon – both at Crozer Chester Medical Center in Upland, Pennsylvania, a Temple affiliate.


Another alumnus with ties to Afghanistan is A. Frederick Hartman, MD ’69. A family physician with subspecialty training in infectious diseases, epidemiology, and public health, Dr. Hartman has devoted much of his 30+-year career to world health. He recently spent several years in Afghanistan as Technical Director and Deputy Chief of the largest healthcare initiative in US-AID’s history: Project REACH (Rural Expansion of Afghanistan’s Community-based Healthcare), documenting the experience in the book Window on Afghanistan: Rebuilding Health, Hope and the Human Spirit (Trafford Publishing, 2006). In January Dr. Hartman was named a Distinguished Alumni Fellow by Temple University.

 

Read a transcript and view the video of the ABC World News segment here.

 

View an ABC News slideshow, Twin Healers in Afghanistan, here.

 

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By Giselle Zayon, Office of Institutional Advancement

giselle.zayon@temple.edu

February 29, 2008