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• IVUmed Traveling Resident Scholar Program deadline is February 1!

Each year IVUmed selects residents for its Traveling Resident Scholar Program, which gives residents the opportunity to experience urology in a developing world setting. You will have the opportunity to travel with board-certified urologists to partner hospitals around the world to exchange ideas with host physicians and perform procedures including open stone surgery, benign prostate surgery, hypospadias repair and incontinence procedures. Read first-hand accounts of these experiences here http://ivumed.blogspot.com/ .

If you are a resident or fellow PGY-3 and above, you are invited to submit an application to the IVUmed Program Manager, Mary Fredley, at mary.fredley@ivumed.org. The application deadline for travel between July 2011 and June 2012 is February 1, 2011. For more information on the program visit the IVUmed  website, http://ivumed.org/pages/scholarships_and_fellowships, or find them on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/IVUmed.

This is just a subtle reminder of the wonderful opportunities you have as a physician or healthcare professional to make a huge difference in the lives of people around the world. And a not-so-subtle reminder that the freedom and flexibility of a locum tenens lifestyle can make pursuing your life’s passions a reality.

I have the great pleasure of sitting on the board of directors for Janus Youth Programs, a large non-profit organization based in Portland.  One of our most exciting programs is Village Gardens, an 85,000 square foot urban agriculture program that uses sustainable organic gardening and farming to increase access to healthy food, improve economic opportunities and build unity with low-income residents of North Portland.

 The program is based in the St. Johns Woods public housing development; New Columbia, the Housing Authority of Portland’s newly built Hope VI development; and on an acre of metro land on Sauvie Island. It offers individual and family garden plots, employment opportunities for adults and teens, after-school and summer activities for children, homework clubs, a mobile market shuttle, a youth-run entrepreneurial business growing and marketing specialty salad mixes at local farmers markets, and our newest venture–livestock.

 In an effort to provide locally produced organic protein to the community while building economic opportunities, a committee of adult community members has partnered with younger members to jointly raise laying hens. The project—or more accurately, one of its participating hens—produced the first egg this month. It’s a great milestone for the program!

To find out more about Janus Youth Programs and Village Gardens, check out these links:

 http://www.janusyouth.org/what-we-do/urban-agriculture-services.php

 http://villagegardenspdx.wordpress.com/

Forty-five years ago the first Community Health Centers were started in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, and Boston, Massachusetts, by two tireless advocates for civil and human rights – Drs. H. Jack Geiger and Count Gibson. Today, over 1,200 health centers serve more than 17 million persons in 8,000 urban and rural medically underserved communities across the nation.

President Obama declared his support for our nation’s health centers by issuing a Presidential Proclamation last Friday recognizing August 8 – 14, 2010 as National Health Center Week. And health centers across the country have joined in the week-long festivities, celebrating this year’s theme – “America’s Health Centers: Turning the Vision into Reality.”

This program sends a mentor paired with a urology resident from the United States to a host country to collaborate with local physicians.  We know from experience that locum tenens physicians make great mentors and that many of you are open to adventures that change the lives of many, including yourselves.

Here are more details about the mission:

• Physicians from the United States provide training in the techniques they use at home, while receiving training from local hosts in the techniques used in settings with limited resources. The physicians from the United States gain beneficial surgical experiences and insights into a different medical care system, while the hosts receive valuable training in techniques requiring newer technology.
• This workshop will take place at Mulago Hospital in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. The hospital is the national referral hospital for Uganda, and has approximately 1500 beds. It is affiliated with Makerere University School of Medicine. IVUmed has conducted a site visit at this location, but this will be their first workshop at Mulago Hospital.
• A typical day of work will consist of rounds, surgery, and lectures. As a volunteer, your primary responsibilities would be to provide education to the local physicians and to mentor the residents from the United States. Community urologists will present informal topics of their practical experience such as their approach to impotence, infertility, and the management of other clinical problems.
• IVUmed expects that the procedures performed will include open stone surgery, benign prostate surgery, and incontinence procedures.  Prior to the workshop, volunteers will be able to communicate with local hosts to determine the educational content of the mission, including what cases and topics the hosts would like to review.

Deadline: February 15, 2010

The deadline for this opportunity is fast approaching. I encourage you to contact Josh Wood to discuss this or a future program.

Contact Information:

Josh Wood
Director of Programs and Education
Phone: 801-524-0201
Direct Line: 801-524-0201

Employees accumulate points for engaging in healthy activities like exercising, eating nutritious foods, doing volunteer work, and relaxing through meditation or massage.  Each time they earn enough points to pass a century mark (100, 200, etc.) they are entered into a drawing for prizes.

We had before-work and lunchtime group walk/runs; random, inspiring, health and wellness email messages; and a hot oatmeal breakfast for all comers to start each day.

This year we added education sessions over the lunch hour including how to maximize nutrition while cooking, the basics of aromatherapy, how to make salads for every season, how to incorporate vegetables into our desserts (honest!), holiday cooking in a green world (from a five-star resort chef) and how to make guilt-free main dishes for the holidays.

We would like to offer our sincere thanks to the local businesses and vendor partners who supported our drive this year, including:

Nostalgia—a lovely little coffee shop in Salt Lake City, www.nostalgiacoffee.com

Jiffy Lube—because what’s more stressful than having your car break down?

Nina Brown and Salad Master—who else could convince people to put beets in chocolate cake?

Leslie Smoot—who taught us healthy cooking classes from Zermatt Resort in charming Midway, Utah www.zermattresort.com

Bill Ligons—our aromatherapy champion

Irock Fitness—featuring our favorite fitness professional, Danny Blankenship—www.irockfitness.biz

It was particularly great to see participation from all of our offices and from our locum tenens, extended placement, international locums, and physician search and consulting divisions.

Through IVUmed programs, physicians from the United States provide training in the techniques they use at home, while receiving training from their hosts in the techniques used in settings with limited resources. The physicians from the United States gain beneficial surgical experiences and insights into a different medical care system, while their hosts receive valuable training in techniques requiring newer technology.  Procedures performed include open stone surgery, benign prostate surgery, hypospadias repair, and incontinence procedures.

This workshop will take place at Hue Central Hospital in Hue, located in central Vietnam.  The hospital is the primary referral facility for central Vietnam, and serves tens of thousands of patients every year.  The majority of the patients are indigent and are treated with standard open surgery, as high tech surgery is only available for those few patients who can afford it.

A typical day of work will consist of morning rounds, surgery, with teaching conferences at mid-day. As a volunteer your primary responsibilities would be to provide education to the local physicians and to mentor the residents at the workshop from the United States.  Volunteers with academic backgrounds can present PowerPoint presentations. Community urologists will present more informal topics of their practical experience such as their approach to impotence, infertility, and the management of other clinical problems.  IVUmed will collate a list of topics prior to the program to present to the hosts for their approval.

In 1997, IVUmed in partnership with The Friendship Bridge began to send American urology residents with American mentors to the Binh Dan Surgical Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City.  With the consultation of their colleagues in Vietnam, they began moving American urology teams to smaller residency programs, and in April 2008, a combined team of staff urologists from Binh Dan Surgical Hospital and the American team worked at Hue Central Hospital.

IVUmed is also seeking a urologist for similar volunteer opportunities in Uganda in February and March of 2010.

For more information please contact:

Josh Wood
Program Manager
Phone: 801-524-0201
Direct Line: 801-524-0201

Five finalist nominations will be announced on Tuesday, February 2, 2010, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater, and the Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday, March 7, 2010.

VISTA has supported this film through the many years of its development. We believe it resonates with physicians, particularly those who thrive on the adventure of  locum tenens.

And don’t forget the nationwide satellite screening on Dec. 14th!

Monday, December 14, 2009

Time: 7:30 p.m. Eastern / 6:30 p.m. Central / 5:30 p.m. Mountain

8:00 p.m. Pacific (Tape Delayed)

Elizabeth Vargas, anchor of ABC News 20/20, will host the event, which will also include a LIVE panel discussion with frontline Doctors Without Borders personnel and award-winning journalists.

The event will be broadcast via satellite from the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, NYU in New York City to over 440 select movie theaters nationwide.

Read more about the film and the organization that inspired it here: http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/events/public/2009-livinginemergency/?ref=home-sidebar-left

Elizabeth Vargas, anchor of ABC News 20/20, will host the event, which will also include a LIVE panel discussion with Doctors Without Borders frontline aid workers and award-winning journalists.

The event will be broadcast via satellite from the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, NYU in New York City to over 440 select movie theaters nationwide.

Read more about the film and the amazing organization that inspired it here: http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/events/public/2009-livinginemergency/?ref=home-sidebar-left

A One-Night Event
Monday, December 14, 2009
Time: 7:30 p.m. Eastern / 6:30 p.m. Central / 5:30 p.m. Mountain
8:00 p.m. Pacific (Tape Delayed)