2017 Distinguished Service Alumnus Award Winner
“Those to whom much is given, much is expected in return.” Dr. William Alfonso, DDS ’77, has lived both his personal and professional life with this as his primary motivation. He is the co-founder of Operation New Life, a multi-disciplinary surgical mission group.
Dr. Alfonso is an honors graduate and Pierre Fauchard Academy award winner from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Dentistry, and completed a residency in oral and maxillofacial surgery at the City of Memphis (now Regional One) Hospital. Following his residency, Dr. Alfonso joined a private practice in Memphis and, in 1982, relocated to North Little Rock, Arkansas, to open a solo oral and maxillofacial surgery practice. He is a Fellow in the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery.
Never one to take his education, surgical skills, and good fortune for granted, Dr. Alfonzo strives to use his skills in a way that benefits others. He feels called to serve God as a missionary, using his skills to help those without proper access to dental care. Spiritual by nature, his journey to medical missionary work came after prayer and discussion with others who had traveled the same path. His decision did not come quickly. He was at the height of his surgical production in private practice.
Dr. Alfonso began short-term medical missionary work in 1998. He sold his practice and became an independent contractor. From 1999 to 2004, Dr. Alfonso and his wife, Sandra, traveled as missionaries to Honduras several times per year performing dental procedures and pulling many teeth.
Dr. Alfonso formed Operation New Life in 2004 with Little Rock plastic surgeon Dr. Kris Shewmake; each had separately served as a medical missionary. Together, they realized they could make a greater impact on the indigent population in Honduras. Their work concentrated on Hospital Escuela in the capital city of Tegucigalpa. Hospital Escuela is the only hospital to serve the poor in Honduras, a country with a poor diet resulting higher-than-normal incidence of malformed skulls and faces.
Since forming Operation New Life, Dr. Alfonso has made the one-week trip between three and eight times per year. On each trip, he leads a team of surgeons, nurses, and non-medical missionary workers who bring lectures and medical equipment to teach the physicians skills they do not have any other way of learning. The trips are all self-funded. Operation New Life has trained two oral and maxillofacial surgeons who will remain on staff full-time at Hospital Escuela.
The addition of two physicians to the staff of Hospital Escuela has led Dr. Alfonso to know he has completed his work in Honduras. However, he is not leaving missionary work altogether. He and Sandra plan to continue serving, now in the Dominican Republic. They will still travel just one week at a timeworking where needed — whether it is humanitarian, medical or evangelistic.
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