Doctor Launches Online Resource for Volunteering Abroad in Pediatric
Surgery
(AP) — PALO ALTO, Calif.-- (BUSINESS WIRE)-May 24, 2010-- The
first website designed for pediatric surgeons who want to volunteer
abroad was unveiled Sunday, May 16, at the American Pediatric Surgical
Association conference in Orlando, Fla.
Developed by pediatric surgeon Marilyn Butler, MD, of Lucile Packard
Children's Hospital at Stanford, the Global Paediatric Surgery Network
(http://globalpaediatricsurgery.org) helps pediatric
surgeons worldwide find volunteer opportunities and also provides
resources to make their efforts more effective.
"The main goal is matching up the needs of the surgeons in developing
countries with the pediatric surgeons who want to volunteer," Butler
said. A clinical associate professor of pediatric surgery at Stanford
University School of Medicine, Butler has been on surgical trips to
China and Vietnam on several occasions.
Using the website, pediatric surgeons can plan or join volunteer
trips to specific countries or regions where there is a demand for their
services. They can post their availability, and individuals and groups
from developing countries can post their needs. The website also
provides surgeons in these regions with access to a large number of
online journals, videos, webinars and other electronic tools that are
relevant to their profession and may be difficult to find where they
practice.
Of 362 pediatric surgeons who responded to a survey Butler conducted
last fall, 70 percent said they were interested in doing international
volunteer work. Meanwhile, more than half said they had never
volunteered internationally before. Given this discrepancy, Butler
believes the network could usher in a new wave of global volunteerism
among pediatric surgeons.
Butler was inspired to develop the network after attending a
conference of the Pacific Association of Pediatric Surgeons two years
ago in Jackson, Wyo. During a session on international volunteerism, one
of the speakers recounted his humanitarian efforts in Ecuador. An
audience member announced that he had volunteered there, too. "A
visiting professor stood up and said, 'Well, I'm from Ecuador, and I
didn't know either one of you were there,'" Butler recalled, adding that
she had this thought: "What if there's a way to coordinate all of this,
so people are not randomly going here and there, thither and yon?"
A global volunteerism clearinghouse for pediatric surgeons seemed a
crying need. Six years before, Butler herself had gone through what she
described as the "random experience" of volunteering abroad, when she
joined a group of physicians and health educators on a trip to
Vietnam.
"I spent the first week and a half seeing a lot of Vietnam, visiting
a bunch of hospitals, not feeling like I had much to contribute," Butler
said. "And then the last week I was there, I ended up in H? Chi Minh
City, where I visited a children's hospital. They didn't know I was
coming. They didn't know anything about me, and I didn't know anything
about them."
She hopes the network, which invites current and past volunteers to
contribute information about their experiences and findings to a
knowledge base, will bring continuity and efficiency to various
volunteer pediatric surgery efforts happening in the same place.
"The idea is that if another pediatric surgeon wishes to work in the
same region, he or she could read an entry on the website and learn how
to connect with the local pediatric surgeons," Butler said. "By reading
about work that has previously been done, that surgeon might work more
efficiently by collaborating with other surgeons or by benefitting from
needs assessments that have already been done."
The network contains links to nearly 100 pediatric surgery societies
around the world, from Paraguay to Nigeria to Belarus. Prospective
volunteers will be able to visit a host of travel-related sites linked
to the network to get information about, say, travel documents,
vaccinations and the local culture.
The network also will help volunteers assess the surgical needs of
the regions they are visiting. "It is critical to involve the local
surgeons with any plans you have to assist. They need to tell you what
they want to learn, and you need to make sure they have the skills or
the equipment or the facilities that are needed," Butler said.
Butler, who handles a full-time surgical caseload, hired a San
Francisco-based company to design the website, which she can update
using a content-management system. But she is, for now, the sole driver
behind the project. "It fills my nights and weekends," she said. "But
it's my passion."
* * *
The Global Paediatric Surgery Network is supported by the Pacific
Association of Pediatric Surgeons and Stanford University's Department
of Surgery and Division of Pediatric Surgery.
CONTACT: Lucile Packard Children's Hospital
Robert Dicks, 650-497-8364
rdicks@lpch.org
KEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA CALIFORNIA
INDUSTRY KEYWORD: SURGERY TECHNOLOGY INTERNET SOFTWARE HEALTH
HOSPITALS PHILANTHROPY OTHER PHILANTHROPY
SOURCE: Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Copyright Business Wire
2010 http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100524005368/en
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