Loyola Physician Susan Hou, MD, Receives Humanitarian Award

Loyola Medicine kidney specialist Susan Hou, MD, who co-founded a clinic that provides free medical care to indigent people in the Bolivian rain forest, is co-recipient of the 2018 American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) Excellence in Humanities and Medical Ethics Award.

The other recipient is Dr. Hou's husband, Mark Molitch, MD, who co-founded the Centro Medico Humberto Parra along with Dr. Hou and a Bolivian physician.

The clinic has cared for more than 50,000 patients. Medical students from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and other centers complete accredited international health rotations at the clinic, which has cared for more than 50,000 patients. Drs. Hou and Molitch pay about 75 percent of the costs of the clinic themselves, with other funding coming from Loyola and private donations.

The AACE award is given to individuals for education upholding the highest principles of medical ethics and standards for the betterment of public health or for devotion to these principles through their work in the humanities or creative arts.

Dr. Hou is a professor in the division of nephrology of Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. Her clinical expertise includes kidney transplantation. In 2002, Dr. Hou altruistically donated a kidney to one of her patients, a mother of two, who suffered kidney failure as a result of polycystic kidney disease.

Dr. Molitch is the Martha Leland Sherwin Professor of Medicine in the endocrinology division at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.