Ruth Pfau
Ruth Katherina Martha Pfau, FCM (9 September 1929 – 10 August 2017) was a German–Pakistani Catholic Christian religious sister and physician who was a member of the "Society of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary". She emigrated from Germany in 1961 and devoted more than 55 years of her life to fighting leprosy in Pakistan. Pfau was honoured with the Hilal-i-Pakistan-, Hilal-i-Imtiaz-, Nishan-i-Quaid-i-Azam-, and the Sitara-i-Quaid-i-Azam awards.
Pfau was born on 9 September 1929 in Leipzig, Germany, to Lutheran Christian parents. She had four sisters and one brother. Her home was destroyed by bombing during World War II. Following the post-war Soviet occupation of East Germany she moved to West Germany along with her family, and chose medicine as her future career. During the 1950s, she studied medicine at the University of Mainz. During this period Pfau frequently met a Dutch Christian woman who was a concentration camp survivor and was dedicating her life to "preaching love and forgiveness". After "her life-changing experience", Pfau left "a romantic association" with a fellow student and became involved in discussions in Mainz's philosophy and classical literature department. After completing her clinical examination, Pfau moved to Marburg to carry on her clinical studies. She was baptised as an Evangelical Protestant in 1951, before her conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1953. Pfau stated that she learned the "courage of being human" from Saint Thomas Aquinas through Josef Pieper's writing. She joined a Catholic parish, and she was greatly influenced by Romano Guardini's The Lord in this period.
Pfau contributed to the establishment of 157 leprosy clinics across Pakistan that treated over 56,780 people. Fazaia Ruth Pfau Medical College and Dr. Ruth Pfau Hospital are named after her in Karachi. She died in August 2017 and was buried with full state honours.