Honolulu (KHON2) – In celebration of its centennial, Shriners Children’s Hawaii is bringing back one of its former patients from the 1960’s to talk about her care experiences at its old Honolulu hospital.

Jan Moore is former patient at Shriners Children’s Hawaii who received great care for her limb discrepancy, she was motivated to educate the next generation of academics towards service, allowing her to give back to the community through research and outreach work on long-term effects of hearing loss in farmers.

“I was born with proximal femoral focal deficiency which means that the upper part of my femur was missing, making one leg shorter than the other. I first received care at Shriners Hospital in Shreveport which I understand was the very first Shriners hospital. By the time I was 9 years old, my dad was stationed at Fort Shafter, and I had multiple surgeries at the second Shriners hospital in Honolulu,” says Jan Moore, PhD, Professor & Academic Diversity Officer, University of Nebraska at Kearney.

According to Moore, she has a lot of fond memories during her time at Shriners Children’s Hawaii, from its staff, which inspired her to give back to the community. 

Moore says, “When you have a disability and you get such great care, you want to give back because you are more empathetic. It is meaningful to me to be able to give of myself and motivate others to change people’s lives and help them succeed. So, I became a professor at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. I started working with kids with surgically implanted prosthetics to address their congenital deafness. I also provided speech therapy services at little to no cost thanks to generous donors like the Scottish Rite Foundation. Then I started doing outreach work with farmers and ranchers in my community, testing them to see how noises impact their cognitive functions. Part of my passion is to understand and increase awareness of the long-term effects of hearing loss to prevent cognitive decline and chronic disease so people can age well.”

To learn more about Shriners Children’s Hawaii and its mission to serve Hawaii and its community, guests can visit its official website. 

Shriners Children’s Hawaii

Website: www.shrinerschildrens.org/hawaii

Social Media Handles: @ShrinersHawaii #ShrinersHawaii