This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Ten orthopedists receive President's Call to Service Award for volunteer efforts
Each recipient logged about 4,000 hours, nearly 2 years of service, with Orthopaedics Overseas.
Imagine spending over 2 years working in a foreign country that is either developing, war-torn or extremely poor. Then imagine putting in long hours at a clinic or in the OR, mostly treating challenging or neglected cases of congenital deformity, trauma or bone tumors, and not getting paid at all.
And, imagine loving every minute of it.
That is the kind of work environment that in recent years enriched the lives of 10 orthopedic surgeons who recently received the President’s Call To Service Award. Health Volunteers Overseas (HVO) recognized them for their contributions at its annual luncheon held in conjunction with the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons 74th Annual Meeting in San Diego.
Award established in 2003
The lifetime achievement award was established in 2003 after President George W. Bush created the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation. It is given annually to individuals who have dedicated over 4,000 hours to volunteer service.
|
Image: HVO |
The orthopedists who were recognized for their unfailing dedication to advancing orthopedic care around the world are Jay S. Cox, MD, Depoe Bay, Ore.; David Denzel, MD, New York; Richard Fisher, MD, Denver; Richard Kemme, MD, Greeley, Colo.; Salvatore LaPilusa, MD, Bayonne, N.J.; Kirk Lewis, MD, Sacramento, Calif.; W. W. Schaefer, MD, Lake Tahoe, Nev.; David A. Spiegel, MD, Philadelphia; Robert E. Stein, MD, Nashville, Tenn.; Lewis Zirkle, MD, Richland, Wash.
Orthopedics Today spoke with several of these HVO volunteers about what winning the prestigious award meant to them. One common thread that bound these volunteers: their passion for teaching surgeons in developing countries and impacting the lives of the people there long-term.
Some of them continue to volunteer with HVO. Denzel, who has served in Ethiopia, South Africa and Uganda since 1989, was out of the country on an HVO trip at the time. In a press release he said, “In the past few years, I have had the privilege to work with Ugandan orthopedic surgeons who I have helped train. Some of these young surgeons have established orthopedic treatment centers throughout Uganda, even in the remote areas that have never had any specialty medical care.”
LaPilusa told Orthopedics Today he was surprised and honored to receive the award. He had to miss the luncheon having just returned a few weeks earlier from a 3-week trip to Vietnam, his 13th.
Originally, LaPilusa thought volunteering with the Orthopaedics Overseas (OO) division of HVO would be a good activity when he became semi-retired. But when his wife died in 1989, he got involved sooner than expected. After seeing an article in an orthopedic journal seeking new OO volunteers, “I figured, I’d do something worthwhile,” he said.
Reflecting on his various HVO trips of 2- to 4-weeks duration to Bangladesh and Bhutan, and six trips to Indonesia, LaPilusa said, “I think I get more out of it than I give because I learn the culture and the people are very friendly. I’m invited to their homes.” He said this was especially true in Vietnam during the Tet celebration.
Avenue to friendship
Zirkle took his first medical mission to Indonesia in 1973 through CAREMEDICO, a forerunner of OO. His travels took him to such locations as Pakistan, Vietnam and Peru and led him to found SIGN, an organization focused on improving worldwide fracture care.
“Orthopedic surgeons have a skill that’s really needed in developing countries,” he told Orthopedics Today. “Trauma is under-recognized as a cause of disability and orthopedic surgeons can go [and] teach about the care of orthopedic injuries. I think it has a big impact on the countries.”
Zirkle has been impacted most by the friendships made through his HVO and SIGN work. He believes friendships comprise a large part of the volunteer experience since both parties share the common goal of intellectual enjoyment of orthopedic surgery. “Friendship is always a two-way relationship … and I might say they put more into it than we do,” he added.
|
Image: Kemme R |
HVO medical director
Fisher spent the last 20 years as an HVO volunteer in Peru, Uganda, Mozambique, Bhutan, Vietnam and Bangladesh. In the early 1990s he was medical director of an HVO rehabilitation training project in Mozambique, according to an HVO press release.
“Working side by side with your local colleague, solving common problems in new and innovative ways is a learning experience beyond compare for both. The development of such professional friendships bridges all cultural and political boundaries,” Fisher said.
He also gave a nod to HVO: “For 20 years, HVO has expertly provided the scaffolding to allow this process to occur for more than 4,000 volunteers. The President’s Call to Service Award recognizes the efforts of the volunteers, but also of the organization.”
Observe the progress
After Cox retired in 1998 he and his wife, Nancy, got involved in HVO, starting with two or three trips a year. They travel about once a year now. “It’s something we’ve kept up,” Cox said.
The couple has traveled with OO to South America, Asia, the Philippines, Bhutan, St. Lucia, Tobago and Trinidad, and they took four trips to South Africa and two to Tanzania. At each location Cox’s role has remained teaching-based ranging from performing surgery to helping local surgeons complete operations to just observing their work.
“So three different variants just like it would be in our own teaching programs and that’s why it is fun to go back to some of these areas where they’ve been there a couple of years and see the progress they’re making. … You can really get great satisfaction to see them be able to do it by themselves,” Cox said.
Himalayan trips
|
Image: HVO |
Stein and Spiegel did most of their volunteering in the Himalayan Mountains, in Bhutan and Nepal respectively.
Stein told Orthopedics Today the timing was right when he arranged through the United Nations to go to Bhutan, a country of 800,000 people. “There was not a single orthopedic surgeon in Bhutan. … They really did need help and it wasn’t just providing care.” Surgeons there also needed training and support. “The sustainable contribution that we’ve been able to make, I think, is that we stimulated the Bhutanese physicians to get formal orthopedic training. We increased the level of orthopedic care in the process,” he said.
The timing of Stein’s involvement was also critical due to the increased trauma now seen in Bhutan due to an improved economy resulting in more motor vehicle accidents.
”We’ve made more people aware of orthopedic care throughout the country so that we’re slowly, but surely, decreasing the incidence of neglected trauma,” Stein said. With his help, Bhutan now has three practicing orthopedists and two others expected to start working there in the next 2 years.
Impacting care
Pediatric orthopedist Spiegel has been to Nepal nine times and an appointment as a consultant at the Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre for Disabled Children in Banepa, Nepal. Related to his HVO work, Spiegel wrote the Bibliography of Orthopaedic Conditions in Developing Countries. Three award-winners chose African nations as their main volunteering destinations.
Lewis was selected for his contributions to orthopedic care in Tanzania and Malawi that commenced in 1992.
|
|
Kemme said he was surprised to win the President’s award. He traveled tirelessly to Malawi 18 times in the last 18 years, spending 2½ years cumulatively there. Each trip lasts about 1 month, but a decade ago he stayed 6 months helping restart a faltering orthopedic training program.
Kemme and his wife are planning to go to Malawi in September and sponsor a 3-day orthopedic seminar. “That’s been one of my big efforts in recent years. [In] the early years I did a lot of surgery in addition to the training,” Kemme told Orthopedics Today.
He is proud that a few Malawian surgeons he worked with went abroad for advanced training, like Nyengo Mkandawire, MD, and decided to return to their homeland. Mkandawire performs procedures from total hip replacements to arthroscopy. “He’s dedicated to helping his people,” Kemme said.
Schaefer was so enthusiastic about volunteering with OO in places like Tanzania and South Africa that he influenced Cox and others to volunteer. “I’m real proud that they did,” he said.
Schaefer described his trips as educational. He not only learned from his mentor, Charles C.P. McConnachie, MD, but also taught others different approaches for clubfoot corrections and inserting Küntscher nails into shattered femurs. Schaefer recalls the time he pinned an Ethiopian patient’s hip fracture “on a very primitive fracture table. But it was successful.”
To those on the fence about volunteering, he said the training U.S. orthopedists receive should provide would-be volunteers with confidence and up-to-date skills for any overseas medical mission trip. “Start volunteering early in your life. … Do it while you’re still in practice,” Schaefer said. “Belong to an organization like OO.”
For more information:
- Learn more about Health Volunteers Overseas at hvousa.org.