The training of local surgeons, anesthesiologists and nursing staff is another critical component of the mission. Thaller says he is committed to working with the Haitian medical professionals he's been training and the local authorities he's met on the trips, until his services are no longer needed.

"Our goal with our charitable missions is to put ourselves out of business," he says.

Shaping Guatemala
Another group of medical professionals is focusing its charitable efforts on a different part of the world - Guatemala, the most populous country in Latin America.

Plasticos Foundation, a Huntington Beach, Calif.-based nonprofit organization, is working to establish a plastic and reconstructive surgery training program for local surgeons and an innovative business model to increase the number of procedures.

Dr. Larry Nichter, the foundation's president and founder, has been on more than 50 medical missions around the world, training surgeons and performing surgeries on children with burns or birth defects.

Early in his career, he realized that although many charitable organizations were doing good work abroad, they didn't place enough emphasis on training local medical teams.
Throughout his travels and research, Nichter found that plastic surgeons in Guatemala are trained outside the country and return to practice mostly in Guatemala City, leaving more than half of the nation's indigenous population without care. There are no recognized Plastic and Reconstructive Residency training programs in the country.

His response to the problem came along in 1997, when he established the Plasticos Foundation with the goal "to make people self-sufficient," he says.

Today, the organization takes two to three trips abroad annually. In early fall, it conducted the first Advanced Plastic Surgical Symposium for all of Guatemala.
However, there are challenges to overcome.

"[Plastic surgeons] make enough that they can afford a car and a small apartment but not much else," says Nichter. "The amount of money that's available to treat these patients at the Social Security hospital is extremely small."

Dr. Ernesto Cofiño, chief of plastic surgery for Instituto Guatemalteco de Seguridad, the country's largest hospital, currently has a waiting list of more than 250 patients. Private facilities don't fare much better.

"The doctors can't afford to provide their services in private clinics because there's no one to pay for it," says Nichter.

To not only cultivate the interest of surgeons in reconstructive surgery, but also to enable patients to pay for it, Nichter is looking to Dr. Muhammad Yunus' concept of a social business model. Yunus, an economist and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, is the founder of Grameen Bank, a microfinance organization that began by making small loans to the impoverished in Bangladesh and is currently doing so throughout the world.

More Industry Headlines