Medical Missionary

My Journey Through Global Health and Higher Education

Dan Jones

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781496862730
• Subtopic: Education Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

In Medical Missionary: My Journey Through Global Health and Higher Education, Dan Jones explores his personal journey as a spiritual pilgrim and the many surprising twists along the way. Providing readers with a lens to share in remarkable events, Jones reflects on the choices he made during an unexpected and winding path from rural Mississippi in the 1950s and 1960s to Korea in the 1980s and beyond. His professional life spans work as a physician, missionary, humanitarian, medical school dean, and university chancellor, and includes high-profile, and sometimes controversial, leadership positions.

Jones tells a compelling story that is hopeful despite struggles with cancer and professional setbacks, and always returns to his faith. His writing is an inspiration, especially for anyone seeking real purpose or who is simply frustrated with their life's seeming lack of purpose. For readers who want to learn more about the world, Jones provides tangible examples of an American doing medical humanitarian work who sought and gained access to places few Americans have visited recently, including China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

His desire to ensure access to medical care for anyone anywhere led to surprising adventures full of excitement and risk and prepared him to face political pressure and intrigue upon his return to his home state. Direct and unsparing, Jones offers a personal account of the difficulties of having to choose between what is right and what is easy.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface. The Ending and the Beginning
• Chapter 1. My Father’s Secrets
• Chapter 2. The Lesson Housed in Outhouses
• Chapter 3. Snow Day in the Leprosy Village
• Chapter 4. An Armenian Iranian Pentecostal Pastor and the Kurdish Refugees Fleeing Iraq
• Chapter 5. The Russian Surgeon’s Skin Grafts, Service, and Fifty-Cent Socks
• Chapter 6. Signature Required: The Baptist Statement of Faith that Set Several Journeys in Motion
• Chapter 7. Canadian Pro-Wrestling Fans in Pyongyang and Other Outrageous Lies
• Chapter 8. When a North Korean Handler Defects … to Football
• Chapter 9. The Lunch Box that Nearly Took Down a Medical Center
• Chapter 10. Invasive Monitoring and Noninvasive Surgery
• Chapter 11. Lydia’s Coffee and My Canines
• Chapter 12. How Harry Belafonte Revised the Story of Bob Dylan’s Discarded Harmonica
• Chapter 13. Recanting in Canton
• Chapter 14. Four Nudges from Congressman John Lewis
• Chapter 15. Whose Problem Is It?
• Chapter 16. Epilogue
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author