Grants Support Global Perioperative Working Group's Surgical Outreach Efforts
NOVEMBER 2019
Two members of the Emory Global Perioperative Health Working Group, a multidisciplinary organization dedicated to addressing gaps in perioperative care and emergency services in low and middle income countries (LMICs), with an emphasis on training, education, and research, have received support grants that will benefit the group's surgical outreach program in Bolivia.
Steven Roser, DMD, MD, chair of the Global Perioperative Health Working Group and chief of the Division of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, has received a joint Global Outreach Program grant from the Henry Schein Cares Foundation and American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. These grants support recipients who promote the delivery of oral and maxillofacial surgery care in underserved communities in the United States and around the world through volunteer service.
The grant will be applied to supporting the Emory/Healing the Children Northeast team led by Dr. Roser that will work with local physicians and staff to perform cleft lip and palate repair in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, January 11-20, 2020. Dr. Roser has led surgical trips sponsored by Healing the Children NE since 1992.
A travel grant from the Global Initiative for Volunteerism and Education program (GIVE) of the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Foundation will contribute to paying expenses for Chelsea Mitchell, DDS, administrative chief resident of Emory's OMFS residency program, to participate in the Santa Cruz trip. GIVE travel grants are awarded to residents traveling internationally with experienced surgical teams to deliver humanitarian healthcare to underserved populations.
In addition to providing cleft lip and palate repair on the trip, Drs. Roser and Mitchell will work with Erica Ludi, MD, and Alexandra Reitz, MD, general surgery residents and Emory global surgery research fellows currently based in Santa Cruz, on collaborating with local medical and surgical personnel and the Rotary International in Santa Cruz to classify and measure gaps in perioperative care in the region so that the Global Perioperative Health Working Group can establish sustainable goals to improve these gaps.