Thomas Owens Sr., M.D.
By News Staff
5/12/2009

Thomas Owens Sr., M.D., of Panama City, Panama, died Dec. 18, 2008, at age 72. He had been a member of the Academy since 1969.

Owens received his medical degree from Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad de Panama («University of Panama School of Medicine»), or FM-UP, in Panama City in 1963. He served his first internship year at the Hospital General de la Caja de Seguro Social (Panama’s Social Security Administration) in Panama City, and a second year at Clinica Hospital de David in western Panama.

Owens then returned to Panama City, where he started an anatomy professorship at FM-UP and opened a general practice at the Policlinica Presidente Remon («President Remon Private Hospital»), Caja de Seguro Social. He also launched a private practice, Clinica Owens, in the Panamanian capital’s inner city.

Owens was named chief of the General Practice Service of the republic in 1969, a position he held until 1989. After helping to launch a family medicine department at FM-UP, he was named associate dean and director of the medical school from 1990-94, and served as chief of adult health for Panama’s Caja de Seguro Social from 1999-2004.

After retiring from national service, Owens was professor and chair of the Department of Anatomical Sciences at FM-UP. He was a founding member and the third president of the International Center for Family Medicine, as well as an active member of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine and the World Organization of Family Doctors.

In 2005, Owens was honored as the «Father of Family Medicine in Panama» by that nation’s medical schools. One of his sons, Tomas Owens Jr., M.D., is the immediate past president of the Oklahoma AFP.