The Medical Mission

Dr. Lawrence V. Conway

El Salvador, Mexico, South Africa, Zimbabwe, The Philippines.  These are among the nations whose poorest citizens have reason to thank Dr. Conway, whose efforts have resulted in both support and recognition for medical missions.   As president of The Diller Foundation, he heads the Toledo-based organization named for Toledo reconstructive surgeon James G. Diller MD. Since January 2000, the foundation has shipped about 280 tons of medical materials to nearly 30 countries worldwide without regard to race, religion, nationality or political affiliation.

Dr. Conway, who took his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Illinois and was a scholar at the Graduate School of Banking at the University of Wisconsin, has published numerous books on banking, investment and finance.  At The University of Toledo, where he was a professor of finance in the College of Business Administration, he founded the Lawrence V. Conway Business Alumni Affiliate Scholarship and the Lawrence and Ruth Conway Minority Scholarship, the latter for female minority students.

In 2002, he established the Medical Mission Hall of Fame, which honors those individuals and organizations that have made significant and substantial contributions to advancing the medical well-being of people throughout the world. Initially, the Hall of Fame performed its yearly honors without a permanent home, but that changed in 2005, thanks to a bequest Dr. Conway made to The University of Toledo.  Now the Center for Creative Education on The University of Toledo Health Science Campus houses the Hall of Fame, which in addition to providing a greater physical presence for the organization allows the display of its resources and access to its archives.

That gift also supports students and faculty from the UT College of Medicine who wish to participate in medical missions. The support dovetails with Dr. Conway’s service as President of the Medical Mission Hall of Fame Foundation, which has as its motto “love in action.”

Among the many honors that Dr. Conway has garnered over the years are the Special Service Award and Distinguished Service Award both from Lutheran Social Services. He is an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association. In 2006 and 2007, he won the Jefferson Award, which encourages and honors individuals for outstanding community and public service at the grassroots level. The founding goal of the award was to establish a Nobel Prize for this service.

An Illinois native, Dr. Conway and his wife, Ruth, have one daughter (deceased), two sons and three granddaughters.