September 22, 2009, ST. LOUIS – Barnes-Jewish Hospital will host a free St. Louis movie premiere of the documentary “Sons of Lwala,” Tuesday, November 3 from 6:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. at the Missouri Botanical Garden. The film features Barnes-Jewish and Washington University School of Medicine resident Milton Ochieng’, MD, in his efforts to establish a medical clinic in his native Kenya.

“Sons of Lwala” chronicles Dr. Ochieng’s story from being the first person in his Kenyan village to be accepted to an American university to the establishment of a medical clinic for an impoverished village where fellow villagers sold chickens and goats to raise $900 in airfare for Dr. Ochieng to attend Dartmouth University on a scholarship.

(Find out more about Milton Ochieng', MD from ABC News' Charles Gibson.) 

Never forgetting where he came from, he worked with his brother Fred to open a medical clinic in the village. To the average American that might not sound impressive, but in Kenya such medical help is rare. His village has no electricity or running water.

"You'd either have to get the person in the back of a bicycle or in a wheelbarrow if they're bleeding and literally push them on the wheelbarrow for 45 minutes or an hour to get to the nearest paved road -- then flag down a taxi," says Dr. Ochieng'. "Sometimes, it would take two hours to get to the hospital."

He remembers helping push a woman on such a trip who died during childbirth on their journey.

"They had to push her back in this bloody wheelbarrow," says Dr. Ochieng’. "And I just remember the eerie cries of the women as her body was being brought back."

He credits that experience with helping him decide to become a physician. From Dartmouth, he attended medical school at Vanderbilt University – where his brother Fred currently studies – before moving to St. Louis and Barnes-Jewish as a medical resident. All the while, the two brothers worked together to create the clinic by raising money in the United States.

Although the clinic opened April 2, 2007 and has seen over 25,000 patients - 65% of them under age 5 – his parents did not live to see their children’s work come to fruition, both dying of AIDS in 2004.

Efforts to build the clinic were chronicled in “Sons of Lwala” and have earned Fred and Dr. Ochieng’ honors as ABC News’ “Persons of the Week” in early 2009. Dr. Ochieng is also part of elite company as winner of the 2009 Trailblazer in Diversity Award from the Johnnetta B. Cole Global Diversity & Inclusion Institute. Previous winners of the award include Dr. Maya Angelou, actor and activist Danny Glover and BET founder Sheila Johnson.

To find out more about Ochieng’s work visit http://www.sonsoflwala.com/ or http://www.lwalacommunityalliance.org/