What makes Pediatric Orthopedic Project unique?
We are education-focused to ensure sustainability. We believe in the motto:
“Give a man a fish, and you feed them for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”
Scoliosis Surgeries
We are one of the few foundations that perform scoliosis spine surgeries in children in the developing world.
This is because spine surgeries are long, complex, and carry a higher risk of infection in the developing world.
To date, POP has operated on 103 patients during 11 mission trips. There have been no complications. What’s even more amazing is that the colleagues that we have trained have operated on an additional 420 patients without complications.
That’s 523 patients total because of POP!
Collaboration
POP President, Dr. Mady Stazzone discusses the plans of the day with VJCN President, Cecilia Espejo
Compared to the other few foundations that do what we do, we operate on a relatively large number of patients (7-10) in a short period of time (1 week).
We can do this because of our top-notch team members, which includes doctors, nurses, technicians, and ancillary staff, whose goal is to perform these surgeries as close to as possible as we would in the US.
We also owe part of our success to our collaboration with the “Voluntariado Jesus Con Los Niños,” (VJCN) a non-profit volunteer group that supports the public children’s hospital in Santiago and that has been helping us since we began in 2012. During the mission they help coordinate patients’ admissions and testing, provide emotional support to patients and their families as well as lunch for our mission team. In 2014 we officially registered in the Dominican Republic as an arm-to-arm foundation with VJCN, making POP an international foundation.
Education
Lead orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Enrico Stazzone (center) proudly stands beside the two surgeons that he has trained since 2012, Drs. Miguel Luna (left) and Iohan Fernandez.
We do not just operate once a year but have an ongoing relationship with the Dominican colleagues we trained who work with us on missions and between mission trips, consulting with us and following up on previous patients.
No One is Salaried
Although our efforts and programs continue to expand each year, we have been able to remain completely volunteer-run.