Dr. Joanne Liu has served as International President of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) from 2013 to 2019. At the helm of MSF, she was a leading voice on medical humanitarian crises, namely in the Ebola outbreak of West Africa, attacks on hospitals, and forced displacement crisis, and has engaged with world leaders at the highest levels.
Dr. Liu’s role builds on a career of fieldwork with MSF, including over 20 medical-humanitarian field assignments. Dr. Liu trained at McGill University School of Medicine in Montreal. She holds a Fellowship in Pediatric Emergency Medicine from New York University School of Medicine and an International Masters in Health Leadership, also from McGill University.
Dr. Liu’s operational work has ranged from introducing comprehensive care for survivors of sexual violence to developing a telemedicine platform for connecting doctors in rural areas with specialists worldwide.
Dr. Liu remains a practicing doctor, both in the field with MSF and also through hospital shifts in her home town of Montreal. She believes strongly in bringing and delivering high-quality, patient-centered care in all medical work contexts.
3 words to describe Nature?
Wholeness. Strength. Wisdom
3 things Nature taught you?
Humility
Endurance
Reverence
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Desert of Yémen
Rice fields in Sri Lanka
Manado diving spots
When you look at the OCEAN, it makes you feel…?
Overwhelmed
When you see a FOREST, it makes you feel…?
Like whispering
When you see a VOLCANO, it makes you feel…?
Mesmerized
When you see a SUNRISE or SUNSET, it makes you feel…?
Calm and centered
When you hear THUNDER, it makes you feel…?
Awake
When you hear the WIND HOWLING, it makes you feel…?
Foreboding
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Sky
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
9
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
When I was a kid, I would go camping and I remember how much I liked to fall asleep while listening to the sound of the river.
