Looking for opportunities in humanitarian plastic surgery

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jdh19

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So I am an M3 trying to figure out what I would like to do with the rest of my life. I have it down to a few things, those being neurosurgery and plastics. I started a thread similar to this over in the neurosurgery forum with some success and thought I would do the same here.

Basically, I have been trying to find opportunities in humanitarian plastics for medical students and beyond. I have not had much luck. It seems to me that most opportunities are in orthopedics and general surgery. I have worn google and PubMed out, so I thought I would see if anyone here knows of any organizations or even residency programs with built in opportunities.

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The Operation Smile website would be a great place to start looking.
 
The last time anyone looked and counted, there were over 200 groups doing plastic surgery mission trips. These include the big organized groups such as Interplast and Operation Smile. Smile Train provides some funding for trips but doesn't organize groups. A lot of the trips are by people in private practice that get together every year or so and they tend to go back to the same place. Others are done out of a university program. I go with a group out of Minnesota that fields an entire medical, nursing, dental, ophtho and surgery effort. Believe me, you want humanitarian, you can get humanitarian.

--M
 
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I should clarify what I mean by opportunities. Most of the things I've found are one or two week trips. I would like to spend months or years at a time. I contacted Interplast, but they do not do anything more than short trips. I guess I'm looking for some perspective too on the potential to do long-term work as opposed to short trips.

Josh
 
My guess is that organizations like MSF would be very interested in a Plastic Surgeon with broad capabilities, but I've never inquired.
 
I would like to spend months or years at a time.

Interplast does have a year long fellowship program where you spend a lot of time in other countries doing both surgery and education. There are a few religious based organizations that also provide some long term opportunities, but they would most likely expect you to do general surgery as well.

--M
 
Interplast has the Webster fellowship. This is essentially for graduating residents/craniofacial fellows. It's an awesome opportunity and get to travel across the world.

As for med students interested in working with interplast, the best way is likely as a trip coordinator/translator, everyone else on the team is usually an MD or RN.

I think these global health trips are great opportunities to understand how the field can be beneficial abroad. I don't think it helps figuring out if your going to enjoy the training involved. Shadowing and being on service is more likely going to give you a better perspective if the field is something you can see yourself doing.
 
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