Sandra
The Reverend Sandra McCann, M.D., retired from her position as Chief of Radiology at Hughston Orthopedic Hospital in Columbus, GA, in 1999. Following her graduation from Virginia Theological Seminary with a Masters of Divinity degree in 2003, Sandra and her husband, Martin, became appointed missionaries of the Episcopal Church of USA. After eight months of training in mission work in Africa, Sandra returned home in October 2004, to be ordained a Deacon in the Diocese of Atlanta in her home parish of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Columbus, GA. During those initial internship months, Sandra very much enjoyed teaching liturgy and homiletics at St. Philip’s Theological College in Maseno, Kenya. This helped prepare her for their permanent assignment in November of 2004 to Dodoma, Tanzania, where she is a member of the staff of Msalato Theological College. Dodoma is the capital of Tanzania and is located in the Diocese of Central Tanganyika where the Right Rev. Mdimi Mhogolo is the bishop. Sandra was ordained to the priesthood by the Right Reverend Neil Alexander, Bishop of Atlanta, in the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Dodoma in June 2005. Since 2007
Sandra has decreased her teaching load to act as the Communications Director and Chaplain of the college.
Martin
Martin McCann, M.D., is a pathologist who practiced in community hospitals for 25 years, retiring in 1999 from his position as Chief of Pathology of St. Francis Hospital in Columbus, GA. During his first year of retirement, Martin obtained a certificate in Tropical Medicine, doing the course part of the work at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and the field part of the work in Lima, Peru. For the next three years while his wife, Sandra, was in seminary, Martin did many short-term medical mission trips to Haiti, Honduras, Dominican Republic, and Kenya. In their first months as Episcopal missionaries in Africa, Martin worked on improving the quality of the laboratory at Maseno Mission Hospital in Maseno, Kenya. His primary interests are laboratory improvement and the use of fine needle aspiration for diagnosing infections and tumors. After the McCann’s moved to Dodoma, Tanzania, in November 2004, Martin set up a histopathology laboratory in the Mackay House Anglican Mission Clinic in the Diocese of Central Tanganyika. One day per week he a consults and teaches at the Mvumi Anglican Mission Hospital about 30 kilometers outside of Dodoma. In addition to teaching in the schools for medical technicians and clinical officers at the hospital, he teaches the HIV/AIDS courses at Msalato Theological College.
Personal
The McCann’s met and married during medical training in Rochester, NY, in 1972. They have two daughters.
Their older daughter, Elizabeth, a 2005 Columbia University School of Medicine graduate, completed an anesthesia residency at Brigham Hospital in Boston in June 2009. She is currently doing back-to-back one-year fellowships in Pain Management and Palliative Care at the same institution. Her husband, Wilson Rickerson, is Executive Vice President of a Boston-based consulting firm that focuses on renewable energy and climate change policy.
Their younger daughter, Catherine, holds degrees from Columbia University and Domas Academy in Milan, Italy.
After marrying in May of 2009, she and her husband, Barry Freeman, of Atlanta, GA, moved to Shanghai, China, where Catherine is studying the Mandarin language and the art of Chinese cooking. Barry is Managing Director of the investment firm, ARC China.
