President and Nobel Winner Chooses Springfield for Orthopedic Care

The Land of Lincoln hosted the president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, when she came to Springfield’s Memorial hospital for surgery on her arm October 4.

Besides being president, Ms. Sirleaf is co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.

The surgery was performed by Saadiq El-Amin, M.D. and an orthopedic surgeon and Southern Illinois University (SIU) medical school’s chair of surgery, Michael Neumeister, M.D. El-Amin had met the Liberian president when he was on a medical mission trip to Liberia in 2012. The president’s son, James Adamah Sirleaf, M.D. an emergency room doctor, had asked him to examine his mother because she was having trouble with her arm.

In June when President Sirleaf was in New York City to address the United Nations she asked El-Amin to come to New York to again take a look at her arm. He told her that she needed surgery. It was decided then that she would have the surgery in Springfield, Illinois. “Of all the places in the world she could have gone, ” El-Amin told Dave Bakke, a writer for the State Journal Reporter, “she came here because she felt comfortable with that.”

Before the surgery the hospital staff held a dinner for their patient so she could meet the people who would be taking care of her and gave her a portrait of Lincoln. El-Amin said, “This was a great opportunity for SIU and Memorial. She could have easily done the surgery in New York. The most impressive thing was that everyone stepped up and did what they were supposed to do. Nobody else’s care was affected that day. We still ran a normal OR. We still had patients getting imaging done. We protected her safety and protected everyone else’s care.”

“This story is his story, ” said Adamah Sirleaf, who accompanied his mother to Springfield. “It’s about his kindness. Dr. El-Amin made it all happen and he did it undercover. He respected the president’s privacy.”

“He said to me once, ‘Dude, this is your mother.’ That’s what it comes down to. It was him caring for my mother. Forget the presidency. Forget the Nobel Prize and all of that. She’s my mother. The whole staff was respectful and kind to her. She was touched by it.”