Educated by the University of Miami and empowered by the military, José A. Stoute has lived many lives—all in service of his fellow humans.
Born in North Carolina to a father in the Air Force and a mother in nursing, Stoute had strong role models for the care and responsibility we can show one another.
Growing up in Panama, he admired the American soldiers stationed on the canal.
“At that time, there was a huge U.S. military base on the canal,” he said. “My friends and I would stand along its fences and just stare at the power and strength of the American military.”
His uncle, who fought in World War II, told war stories that only swelled Stoute’s respect for those in the service.
In 1981, Stoute received a medical scholarship offered through the U.S. Army that would allow him to become a physician.
He spent his academic years at the University of Miami’s medical school and his summers on military bases, training and assisting at veteran’s hospitals.
“Those years felt like a time of enlightenment,” he said. “It was magical, seeing all of the physicians in action, arriving at diagnoses and working to make people feel better.”
It was also a time of uncertainty as HIV began to spread throughout the United States.
“I was training to become a physician during the early ’80s, at the beginning of the AIDS pandemic, before we even knew what was causing it,” Stoute recalled. “We had to gown to see these patients because we didn't know, at the time, what exactly was going on.”
“I just remember all these patients coming in with strange infections, many of them succumbing to the disease," he said. "Some of the very, very seminal studies were done at the University of Miami.”
The experience proved formative to Stoute, who would later specialize and become board-certified in infectious disease.
Dr. Stoute graduated medical school in 1985 and continued to care for others in hospital and laboratory settings until 1991, when he was called to serve in Operation Desert Storm during the Gulf War.
“Suddenly, you’re told to stop everything beccause you have to go to war,” he said. “And I didn’t mind, not the first time around, because I was still fairly young.”
Over the next 10 months, he spent his days caring for the wounded and his nights sleeping in armored vehicles on the battlefield, feeling the ground shake beneath him with nearby explosions.
When Stoute returned to the States after his first round of deployment, he felt he had been given a new lease on life. He savored the simple joy of waking up in his own bed, the freedom to design his own days and do as he pleased.
“In a war situation, you’re just there, and it’s all around you, every day,” he said. “When you return home, you look at everything differently—you feel as if you’ve been given another opportunity to live.”
He continued working with the military as a scientist, overseeing the construction of medical facilities in Kenya and supporting pediatric malaria research.
“We began clinical trials for vaccines and anti-malarial drugs, and I’m very proud of the work I was able to do and the impact that was able to leave in that part of the country.”
In 2006, Stoute was deployed once again, this time in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
“This time, I had a family—a wife and children. It was more difficult to stop everything and go somewhere where I could get killed,” he said. “It felt risky; my wife and I were very concerned, and there were many nights where I wondered whether I was going to make it.”
“I’m glad that I was in the army and that I was able to retire. I consider myself lucky that I was able to get through and come out at the other end,” he said. “There were many who did not come back.”
He returned home with renewed purpose.
“I asked myself, what else do I want to do in this life? And I realized that I wanted to tell the stories of real people who have struggled to survive, stories with characters who have overcome obstacles in their lives, stories that I grew up with,” he said. “And I wanted to learn how to tell these stories through film.”
He enrolled at the University of Miami School of Communication for his Master of Fine Arts, specializing in motion pictures.
“I would say that it is difficult going back to the classroom, especially when your classmates are people young enough to be your children,” he said. “It felt like a different culture, but I persevered and managed to overcome those obstacles, and, one way or another, I got it done.”
Over the next three years, he wrote, directed, and produced his first feature film: “St. Vierja Academy,” a semi-autobiographical account of a man forced to confront the ghosts of his past and come to terms with his time at an elite boys’ school during the 1970s in Panama.
He said writing the script was a catharsis, bearing testament to his experiences. When he completed the film, he felt relief.
The first time he premiered his work in theaters, the audience’s response surprised him.
“People told me that they cried, that certain things reminded them of themselves in school or their relationships with their parents,” he said. “People laughed in places that I wasn’t expecting them to laugh, and that was also kind of interesting.”
“St. Vierja Academy” will be shown at the Tower Theater in Little Havana on January 25, 2025.
For his next project, Stoute plans to tell the story of Black workers and their struggles during the construction of the Panama Canal.
To students who take inspiration from his journey, Stoute advised this: “Don’t give up. Don’t give up on your dreams, and don’t give up on what you really want to do. With perseverance, you’ll always find a way.”
To those looking for ways to support the troops, Stoute said: “If you meet a veteran who is applying for a job, remember that those same strengths they showed on the battlefield—leadership, integrity, resilience, teamwork—will carry through to their lives as civilians and in the workforce.”
