Chief Executive Officer | Be Team International
Dr. Richard Manning is passionate about the work that Be Team International is accomplishing in Afghanistan. He has been part of the team supporting the Cure Hospital in Kabul since it was opened in 2005. Seeing an opportunity to merge academia with developing world surgical practice, Dr. Manning led a team of expatriate healthcare professionals over the next nine years to transform the hospital into one of the nation’s leading academic healthcare institutions. His roles included Director of General Surgery Fellowship program, Medical Director and Executive Director. By the time he left in 2014, the hospital was being managed completely by Afghan staff.
Dr. Manning has continued supporting the team operationally and financially by solidifying the hospital’s partnerships with outside funding agencies. In January 2015, he accepted the full-time position of Director of Medical Operations at the CURE Mission Support Center in Pennsylvania. When CURE made the decision in 2018 to cease operations in Afghanistan, Dr. Manning founded Be Team International, a non-profit that works with national and international stakeholders to continue the good work of the Cure Hospital in Afghanistan.
Dr. Manning completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also played football for four years. He earned his medical degree at the Thomas Jefferson Medical College and completed his general surgery training at the George Washington University Hospital. Following a year in private practice, he was activated as a reservist in the Navy to serve at the Bethesda Naval Hospital during Desert Storm. While training young Navy surgeons, his passion to be involved in academic surgery was reinvigorated. Dr Manning returned to central Pennsylvania where he became part of a team of surgeons supporting general surgery training at the Pinnacle Health System and the Hershey Medical Center. In 1993, he joined a local team of healthcare workers on a 10-day medical missionary trip to Haiti where his desire to serve in the developing world was born.
Dr. Manning and his wife, Linda, have been blessed with five children. He enjoys playing the piano and being Pop/Baba Kalon to his ten grandchildren.