A Good Death: Dr. Pamela Prince Pyle
Pamela Pyle is a Board-Certified Internal Medicine physician who studied at Oklahoma State University, North Texas Health Science Center and completed her training at Baylor University in Houston. She was one of three physicians selected in 1992 by Carolina Health Specialists (CHS) to begin the first hospital based internal medicine practice outside of a university setting in the United States.
Dr. Pyle has served in her community by volunteering at a private clinic that provides medical care to those in need and without access to medical services. She and her husband have been involved in community-based charities since early 2000 and have founded a non-profit that provided resources to vetted children’s charities so that these charities could focus on providing program services. Nationally, she serves in Washington D.C. as a Museum of the Bible Woman of Legacy Ambassador.
Additionally, in 2009, Dr. Pyle began traveling to Rwanda to do medical work with Africa New Life Ministries (ANLM). As a global health equity advocate, she founded the US Healthcare Council in 2010 which was integral to the development of the healthcare system utilized by the ministry and is currently serving over 12,000 children and young adults in Rwanda. In 2011, she joined the Board of Directors of ANLM and currently serves as Chair of the Board of Africa New Life Ministries.
In response to the medical needs of Rwanda, Dr. Pyle was instrumental in the founding and growth of the Dream Medical Center (DMC) in Kigali. This state-of-the-art hospital is the second largest private hospital in Rwanda and is currently in the process of earning international accreditation.
She also serves as Director of Strategic Partnerships as one of four founding members of Umubano Group which works in small to medium sized enterprises for the purpose of job creation and community development as a mechanism to impact poverty in developing nations.
In 2018 Dr. Pyle began work on the topic of A Good Death Is Not An Event, But A Lifestyle. She recognized that the dying are often our greatest teachers, and she desired to be a great student. Her intent her published works and her website www.drpamela.com is to reach a larger audience with answers to the common questions she has received from patients and their families throughout her medical career. Sparked by one dying woman’s declaration that she would have “a good death,” Dr. Pyle has continued to pose the questions, “How is that possible? What exactly makes for a good death?” and then discovers the answers reveal more about life than dying or death.
Dr. Pyle is a speaker at national and international events around the topics of global health equity, women’s discipleship, and matters that make for “a good death”.
Pamela is a wife, mother to five, grandmother to eight, adventurer at heart, author, poet, and “Reckless Dreamer.” She and her husband, Scott, call South Carolina home and their second home is an airplane seat somewhere in the sky while on the way to fulfilling their purposes.
Book Recommendations
Man’s Search for Meaning, Dr Viktor Frankl
Dementia from the Inside: A Doctor's Personal Journey of Hope, Dr. Jennifer Bute
Fearfully and Wonderfully: The Marvel of Bearing God's Image, Phillip Yancy and Dr. Paul Brand