Osteopathy Abroad

Osteopathy Abroad: Reaching Out to Help Others
The ideal or objective of any good doctor is, in part, to help people who need help, to provide for people what they cannot provide for themselves, and to care for people in a way that no one else can. There are few ways this objective can be realized more fully than through international medical missions. And in this way, osteopathic physicians have been doing their part to provide services to those people worldwide who do not have regular access to affordable or reliable health care.
Working toward the ideal of serving those people who are most in need, many D.O.s become members of the DOCARE program – a non-profit organization made up of all-volunteer health care professionals representing many areas of medicine. Founded by an osteopathic physician in 1961, DOCARE’s primary objective is to bring needed health care to people in remote areas of countries in the Western Hemisphere who would not otherwise be able to receive such medical attention [www.docareintl.org]. Becoming a part of the DOCARE program, or other similar programs, offers osteopathic physicians a way to work together to provide the necessary health care to people in areas where clean water and a change of clothes are unattainable extravagances.
Osteopathic physicians throughout Michigan and from nearly every medical field devote their time to international medical missions. Paul LaCasse, D.O. and CEO of Botsford General Hospital in Farmington Hills, participates annually on DOCARE mission trips with his wife, Annette LaCasse, D.O., a dermatologist in Commerce Township. Together, with 6 – 12 interns and residents from Botsford and a group of 8 – 10 physicians from Pontiac Osteopathic Hospital, the Drs. LaCasse travel yearly to Guatemala for a two week mission. According to Dr. Paul LaCasse, during each week, it isn’t unusual to treat an average of about 2500 patients during the four days the clinic operates.
Dr. Margaret Morath, a primary care physician and professor of pediatrics at Michigan State University, suggests similar numbers. Dr. Morath is also a member of DOCARE, and she travels each year to areas in South America or Latin America. And each year, Dr. Morath extends an invitation to any and all third and fourth year medical students who are interested in joining her on the mission. From the sound of it, she needs all the help she can get. “We see thousands of people at the clinic each week,” she says. It is not unusual to see such large numbers of people at these clinics, nor is it unheard of for volunteers to put in a minimum of a 12-hour workday.
Even with such staggering numbers, or perhaps because of them, the doctors and students on these missions take away as much from the experience as the people they treat.
“The mission is a very gratifying way for physicians to extend our charitable ambition beyond our local community,” says Dr. LaCasse. “Mission work is a natural fit with the osteopathic vision. Providing care to underserved populations is also personally and professionally rewarding.”
Dr. Terrie Taylor agrees. Dr. Taylor, who considers herself a medical researcher rather than a missionary, began her career as an osteopathic physician with an assignment to Sudan, where she realized the desperate need for medical research in more primitive areas of the world. “My experience in Sudan was key… I realized that basic questions had not even been asked about these diseases that afflict millions and millions of people in the world – and that ‘research’ would illuminate the way forward.”
Dr. Taylor also helped to organize the hugely successful conference on cerebral malaria on Zomba Plateau in Malawi in March of 2005, the purpose of which was to “conceptualize the next 5-10 years work of work on this study,” she says. For much of her career, Dr. Taylor has done extensive work researching and studying diseases such as cerebral malaria, which kills 1 –2 million children annually.
The types of injuries and illnesses seen daily by osteopathic researchers and medical missionaries can range from malnutrition and parasites to malaria and machete wounds. For Dr. Morath’s part, as a primary care on these missions, she treats the illnesses and injuries she can treat, and tries to line up treatment for those she cannot. “As a primary care physician, I try to link up those people who have genetic or congenital defects with specialty doctors, so they can get the treatment they need.”
Another resource Dr. Morath relies on a great deal are the students who accompany her on her missions. “Students play a major role in the success of these missions,” Dr. Morath says. Medical students pay out of pocket for every aspect of the trips (including food and lodging), they volunteer their time and efforts to the cause, and put in long hours at the clinics. In return, they receive the experience of working and caring for patients in less-than-desirable conditions, and they see first-hand what living without readily-available medical care looks like in other parts of the world.
Almost invariably, the students who have volunteered their time on international medical missions become hooked. It is these students, then, who eventually become the doctors devoting their free time to international medical mission work. And it is in this way that the objective of helping, providing for, and caring for others is realized, year after year.