Panayiotis Ellinas, Douglas Country Doctor and Army Reservist

Panayiotis Ellinas, Douglas country doctor, member of the Army Reserves, and humanitarian worker, is Gabrielle Giffords’ supporter of the week. Panayiotis (”Pani”) grew up in a refugee camp before becoming a physician and working to improve the health of people in Cambodia, Kosovo, Thailand, Baghdad, and finally, Southern Arizona. Despite his international career, he is down-to-earth and modest. “I’m just a country doc,” said Pani. “That’s me.”

Pani was born and raised on the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea. When he was 12 years old, the island was invaded by Turkey, he and his family were bombed out of their homes. He spent his adolescence in a refugee camp.

Still, living in such conditions during his adolescence did not temper his motivation and enthusiasm to achieve great things. He applied to Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, and received a full scholarship. After he graduated from Swarthmore, Pani applied to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, NY. He also received a full scholarship to study there.

After spending his residency at the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey, Pani moved out to Southern Arizona to get a degree in Preventative Medicine. “I drove my Chevy truck out to Tucson, and threw away all my suits, and got shorts and Birkenstocks,” he said. He earned a Masters in Public Health at the College of Public Health at U of A.

Pany then embarked on a varied career of improving public health worldwide. While working in Albuquerque, NM for the Center for Disease Control, he wrote the executive summary for the creation of the US-Mexico Border Infectious Disease Surveillance Program. Pani then worked at CDC headquarters in Atlanta, and simultaneously opened his own Mediterranean restaurant, where he served as chef.

After dabbling in the restaurant industry, he became head of a non-governmental organization, the American Refugee Committee. Through this position, he spent seven months in the jungles of Cambodia where he served as the only medical doctor for 20,000 men, women and children. This was a life-changing experience for Pani. “That was the first time I ever enjoyed being a doctor and was proud,” he said. “I was really doing something. Really contributing.”

Deriving great reward from improving the health of people in third-world countries, he left Cambodia and moved to Kosovo in March, 1999. There, he worked to provide medical care during Slobodan Milosevic’s campaign against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, and the subsequent NATO military action to halt it. He stayed in the region for four years, where he also served as the acting head of the World Health Organization’s mission to Albania. During this time, he also met his wife, Desdemona, an Albanian.

Pani and Desdemona decided to move to the United States, and he worked as a primary care physician in Boston for six months. There he found he could no longer tolerate the frigid Boston weather, and he longed for the beauty and warmth of the Southwest. So he and Desdemona moved back to Southern Arizona — although instead of in a Chevy truck, this time it was in a more family-friendly Plymouth Voyager.

Pani is also a Major in the Army Reserves, and he has served in the Army Medical Corps in Baghdad. Pany doesn’t like to talk much about his experience, because the conditions of the people there were so dispiriting.

He and Desdemona have settled in Douglas, where he is a primary care physician. “I’m just a country doc,” he says. “All I do here is what I did in the jungles of Cambodia. Just the same. Down in Douglas, it’s great. I enjoy being a doctor here.”

Pani sees Gabrielle Giffords as a great hope for the country. “She’s the one I’m backing all the way to Washington,” he said. “She’s going to go far.”

Pani isn’t a partisan voter. “I don’t believe in just going by party line,” he said.

He speaks about her love for people and her ability to connect with her constituents, and cites a recent example of when he was in Tucson. “A few months ago, she got up at the crack of dawn to visit me and my family at the hotel,” he said. “Her schedule was packed. I was not surprised that someone like her would do that. Everything she does is a validation of what I think about her. There are no exceptions.”

Pani and Desdemona have two children — a five-year-old son, Andreas, and a five-month old daughter, Efthalia. The children are trilingual, speaking English, Cypriot, and Albanian