Richard Keidan

Richard Keidan, a Detroit native, is a graduate of the University of Michigan Undergraduate and Medical Schools. He completed Surgical Residency at Royal Oak Beaumont Hospital in 1980, then completed a fellowship in Surgical Oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia in 1986. Richard was an attending surgeon at Fox Chase and an Assistant Professor of Surgery at Temple Medical School until returning to the Detroit area in 1992.

From 1992-2022, he served as an attending Surgical Oncologist at Beaumont and Director of the Beaumont Multidisciplinary Melanoma Clinic. During this time he authored approximately 40 scientific publications and/or presentations for peer review journals or scientific meetings. Richard is currently associated with Trinity Health and continues to be Chief of the Michigan Healthcare Physician's Department of Surgery, Assistant Professor of Surgery at Wayne State Medical School, and Associate Professor of Surgery at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine.

It was during surgical residency that he took a one-year sabbatical which included his first of over 20 trips to Nepal. Originally Richard went to the Himalayas for the mountains and adventure, but soon fell in love with the people. During an exploratory trip to Kanchenjunga in 2009 he met Namgyal Sherpa, the sirdar (lead guide) on the trip. The following summer Richard and Namgyal went to Namgyal’s home area of Khotang and observed the compromised state of public health, health care and education. It was then that D2N was born and the nature of Richard’s trips changed. Once he started the foundation he addressed similar needs in Detroit. D2N serves both Richard’s homes; his actual home of Detroit and his spiritual home of Nepal.

Richard is married to Betsy and has children Rachel and Micah. Richard and Betsy travelled together on the early trips to Nepal in the 1980’s; the children joined them in later trips. Although Richard continues to work as a surgical oncologist, he now spends approximately two months a year in Nepal and countless hours in Detroit initiating and monitoring D2N projects.

Click here to read about Richard in Boston Congress of Public Health and here in Crain's Detroit Business.