Kelly Suter: Emergency Response Volunteer

Relief nurse Kelly Suter works in the very thick of disaster, always on standby to deploy within 72 hours to a war zone or medical crisis, such as an Ebola outbreak, anywhere in the world, be it South Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nepal, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, or elsewhere.

Kelly, who earned a Master of Science in Bioethics degree from the University of Mary, is the Senior Nurse of Medical Planning and Preparedness on the Emergency Response Team of the International Medical Corps, based in Washington, DC. 

It was when she volunteered to help in the aftermath of the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti that she discovered that full-time disaster relief work was what she wanted to do.

“I try to stay close to my faith,” she says. “I believe in the value of every single human life, and that everybody has goodness within them. God puts everybody in a spot for a reason, and you have to discover that reason. 

“People can do good wherever they are,” she says. And she’s devoted her life and career to doing just that.