Mission Trips?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
S

sspod

New Member
10+ Year Member
Joined
Dec 22, 2008
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
I'm a second year podiatry resident and was wondering if anyone knows any info on mission trips for podiatry residents.
Members don't see this ad.
 
is there anything else besides baja. I expressed some interest to a couple of attnedings and a got 1 or 2 who would like to join me.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
one of our chief residents went on the Baja project trip in October....I could hook you up with him for the details.
 
There is a DPM attending in Philadelphia who does missions. I have forgotten his name but he is with the residency program there in center city. Guy has a beard and very calm. Loves putting together missions to south america. Goes allover the place. God I forgot his name, but someone here must know him. He has a website too and was in one of our journals, either APMA or PM news.
Good luck
and be sure to check the scope of practice in whichever country you serve, dont get burned.
 
hey footdoc i would appreciate if you could give the email of the guy who did the baja project. Im def interested in going but want to know what it entails. thanks.
 
histreetken said:
There is a DPM attending in Philadelphia who does missions. I have forgotten his name but he is with the residency program there in center city. Guy has a beard and very calm. Loves putting together missions to south america. Goes allover the place. God I forgot his name, but someone here must know him. He has a website too and was in one of our journals, either APMA or PM news.
Good luck
and be sure to check the scope of practice in whichever country you serve, dont get burned.
Click to expand...

Were you referring to Dr. Cornelius Donohue and World Walk Foundation?
 
^BINGO
Dr. Donohue DPM
He's the pod who started world walk foundation.

This drives me crazy but I have to put a disclaimer on this post, I am not affiliated in any way with his foundation or the pod himself, and I have no information as to what he does.
BUT, I hear thru my mates in Philly that he does a lot of missions and is good to work with.
FYI most non-DPM missions do not accept DPMs.

Good luck and if you do a mission post some pics and tell us all about it.
 
dpmgrad said:
Were you referring to Dr. Cornelius Donohue and World Walk Foundation?
Click to expand...

I just heard Dr. Donohue lecture 2x at the clinical conference in Manhattan yesterday. He was a great speaker and his talks on offloading + the diabetic foot were very interesting. Also, he spoke about mission trips around the world, specifically to Jamaica, Venezuela, Belize, and Brazil. He has a program, I think its called "teachers to teachers" or something similar, where the DPM's train local docs in limb salvage techniques. They showed a few maps where they established diabetic wound centers in these countries and where they would expand in the next few years.
 
Yeah the teachers program is an awesome idea. Each person would commit to teach 100 other care givers. Who in turn would each teach 100 more and so on.

Dr. D is a great speaker, really informative.
 
JEWmongous said:
I just heard Dr. Donohue lecture 2x at the clinical conference in Manhattan yesterday. He was a great speaker and his talks on offloading + the diabetic foot were very interesting. Also, he spoke about mission trips around the world, specifically to Jamaica, Venezuela, Belize, and Brazil. He has a program, I think its called "teachers to teachers" or something similar, where the DPM's train local docs in limb salvage techniques. They showed a few maps where they established diabetic wound centers in these countries and where they would expand in the next few years.
Click to expand...

He is a good guy. I know him personally. He works at a wound care center in the NW part of Philadelphia.
 
I'm curious how DPM's can do these mission trips in countries where podiatry is not recognized. Most of the places where they go are poor and in need of their services (club foot deformities, limb salvage, etc), so maybe the rules are relaxed/not enforced. I know trips have gone to some of south/central america as well as vietnam. What do you'll think???
 
Members don't see this ad :)
JEWmongous said:
I'm curious how DPM's can do these mission trips in countries where podiatry is not recognized. Most of the places where they go are poor and in need of their services (club foot deformities, limb salvage, etc), so maybe the rules are relaxed/not enforced. I know trips have gone to some of south/central america as well as vietnam. What do you'll think???
Click to expand...


i think mainly because of the level of education we receive compared to that of their own physicians......George Vito himself told me before that they would go down to Central America and operate on most of the body, not just lower extremity.
 
JEWmongous said:
I'm curious how DPM's can do these mission trips in countries where podiatry is not recognized. Most of the places where they go are poor and in need of their services (club foot deformities, limb salvage, etc), so maybe the rules are relaxed/not enforced. I know trips have gone to some of south/central america as well as vietnam. What do you'll think???
Click to expand...

I feel this is because majority of these countries are very poor and have very little time for regulation. They dont hve time or resources for all these debates. Plus they really cant afford losing well trained foriegn docs. As long as the person is a health professional from a developed country and delivering promising results they will not find any problem (this is what i found when i volunteered in rural india, dnt knw abt other places).

For some countries USA/Europe are gold standards. If you can do something in US then you can do in their country also. Example : Most middle eastern countries allow Occupational therapists, Pods, PAs, NPs,etc to actively work or practice but they dont really have any established professional guidelines or regulations for them. You are able to practice only because something like this exists in western world. Iam not joking just check online or speak to someone involved in healthcare in these countries.


Last summer i saw a US Pre-med assisting in surgery during my visit to eastern india. Assisting in the sense that he was doing all hands on, something a 3rd yr or 4th yr medical student would do when assisting a surgeon(hands on). I was shocked but no one really cared as that person was part of some mission and the indian doc was cool with it. Ofcourse that part of india is extremely poor and backward. If they try to pull that stunt in BOMBAY or other other parts of india he would have been arrested immediately.
 
Last edited:
Foot Doc said:
i think mainly because of the level of education we receive compared to that of their own physicians......George Vito himself told me before that they would go down to Central America and operate on most of the body, not just lower extremity.
Click to expand...


Vito may have been an excellent foot and ankle surgeon, however he did not know his limits...which might be why he's in jail now for malpractice!

http://www.podiatrymalpracticeblog....o/podiatrist-license-suspended-and-jailed-ga/
 
Last summer i saw a US Pre-med assisting in surgery during my visit to eastern india. Assisting in the sense that he was doing all hands on, something a 3rd yr or 4th yr medical student would do when assisting a surgeon(hands on). I was shocked but no one really cared as that person was part of some mission and the indian doc was cool with it. Ofcourse that part of india is extremely poor and backward. If they try to pull that stunt in BOMBAY or other other parts of india he would have been arrested immediately.
Click to expand...

Even in Mumbai you could probably get away with it, especially if you are in a privately owned hospital (mission). In Kolkata we were essentially surgical assistants while we observed all kinds of procedures. Of course we didn't cut or suture anything (other than a free procedure where the wound was superficial, the doc let us practice some interrupted sutures after seeing we were proficient on pieces of chicken lol), but we were able to help prep the operative site as well as retract and expose it during surgery. And we were only with the doc for a couple of days, our main job at the hospital was to streamline their volunteer program (we put in some new, easy to use software to manage volunteer requests and applications, as well as created standardized itineraries for visiting MD's, RN's, students, donors, etc.).

But iceman is right, in that the surgical assist would never happen in a city hospital in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, etc. Indian Doctors are trained well and the big hospitals over there have some very 1st world regulations and equipment.
 
Wait we have Indian Pod students.

ZOMG! Now I'm excited. Do we have an Indian Pod thread? :laugh:
 
iceman69 said:
Vito may have been an excellent foot and ankle surgeon, however he did not know his limits...which might be why he's in jail now for malpractice!

http://www.podiatrymalpracticeblog....o/podiatrist-license-suspended-and-jailed-ga/
Click to expand...


thats true, but you cannot argue that he opened the door for a lot of what we do now.........plus hes not the only one. I know several guys who have gone on mission trips (Central and South America) where the attendings with them are gung ho about working wwwwaaaaaaayyyyy out of the scope of Podiatry adn sometimes do more harm than good.
 
Foot Doc said:
thats true, but you cannot argue that he opened the door for a lot of what we do now.........plus hes not the only one. I know several guys who have gone on mission trips (Central and South America) where the attendings with them are gung ho about working wwwwaaaaaaayyyyy out of the scope of Podiatry adn sometimes do more harm than good.
Click to expand...


I actually came across the articles pertaining to Vito's arrest when looking up liturature associated with him. However, I hope Dr. Vito's fate serves as reminder, and lesson for those who dream of being "physicians" as a DPM. Podiatry is awesome, and in the future I want to be a competent and proficient foot and ankle surgeon. But I do not think I would feel comfortable working outside the scope of my training, and knowing that I crippled someone by making a preventable error by deferring treatment to another surgeon with different training. I hope the citizens of the countries of the mission trips sue the pants off the DPMs that **** up and hurt their people. Do No Harm...
 
Darklord said:
Wait we have Indian Pod students.

ZOMG! Now I'm excited. Do we have an Indian Pod thread? :laugh:
Click to expand...

Ha ha not quite Darklord. We have white students who have been to India while in College. Those students had an amazing EXPERIENCE there and have respect for the country and its people (if only the gov. wasn't so corrupt). We went to a regular undergraduate University and had the time to see the world and help some people along the way.

Hope your apps to those programs are going good.
 
Thanks dtrack22,

Admissions results for the pharmacy program will be released on this weekend. I am excited. For my combined MD program, I still have to wait another month....

Anyway, I hope to do mission service in the future. It sounds very exciting.

And, our Indian gov't isn't that corrupt... I mean look at Pakistan, Afghanistan, Burma, and China; all of our neighbors. Fortunately, our country and government are doing quite well.

Peace,
Darklord
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Next unread thread

Similar threads

dtrack22
Medial Double vs. Triple Arthrodesis
Replies
0
Views
2K
dtrack22
dtrack22
Top