BUFFALO, N.Y. — At his core, Dr. Myron Glick is a family physician. Treating his patients is his passion.
"I'm blessed because I'm doing what I'm called to do," said Dr. Glick in an interview with WGRZ's Melissa Holmes.
Glick was born in Lancaster, PA, and raised in a missionary family in Belize. He came to Western New York to attend the University at Buffalo Medical School.
In 1997, he founded the Jericho Road Family Practice at 184 Barton Street on Buffalo's West Side with his wife Joyce and just a handful of employees. The mission?
"Our main call is addressing the health inequity, the healthcare access so that any person in Buffalo has access to good healthcare," he said.
Glick founded Jericho Road Ministries, a 501c3 nonprofit in 2003. When that merged with Jericho Road Family Practice in 2013, the Jericho Road Community Health Center, a federally qualified health center, was created. Under the umbrella of the Jericho Road Community Health Center are five health care locations in Buffalo, dental care, a gym and pharmacy. Community programs include the Pricilla Project for new mothers, ParentChild+, financial education services, the Vive Shelter for asylum seekers, and the Hope Refugee Drop-In Center. And Jericho Road's staff of over 300 is as diverse as the clients themselves, serving 56 languages, with in person translators.
"People understand and identify with our team here and that makes all the difference," Glick said. "I want to see the poor treated well by our healthcare system. I want Jericho Road to be that light that says this is the way it can be done, so that anyone whether they speak English or not, anyone whether have insurance or not, anyone whether they're poor or rich or whatever whatever your status is in this community that you have access to good quality healthcare that treats you well."
Glick has also opened health centers in Nepal, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Jericho Road nurse Roseline Kabongo is from the DRC, and she's made three visits back to there with Glick.
"Going back there and helping my people with him, I just don't know how to thank him," said Rosaline Kabongo, LPN. "He cares and he loves the people. He doesn't choose. He gives everybody his best."
In 2020, Jericho Road served nearly 26,000 patients with almost 88,000 visits. There were more than 60,000 patient visits at global sites.
Jessie Mossop is an employee of Jericho Road and also chose to have Glick, a father of four himself, deliver her daughter Mila four months ago.
"It was my first time having a baby so I didn't know what to expect and he did a great job educating me and then also listening to my needs and desires," Mossop said. "The one thing I love about Dr. Glick is his servant leadership. He's always willing to roll up his sleeves. No job is ever too small for him. And just the quality of care he provides to all of his patients, no matter what they all get the same level of quality of care."
His service to those in need in Buffalo and around the world has always been and always will be motivated by his faith.
"I've always had the sense that if Jesus was here today and he saw the way the healthcare system treated the poor, He would do what we do at Jericho Road," he said. "I have this sense that the way I can honor God best is to take care of the people that he cares about the most, which I think is the most vulnerable and marginalized."