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Virginia PT to Volunteer in Haiti
Posted on:
April 5, 2011
NORFOLK, VA -- Kirstin Anderson, DPT, a physical therapist at The Gait Center in Richmond, VA, will volunteer this spring at an amputee clinic in Haiti. Anderson will visit Haiti on behalf of Physicians for Peace (PFP), an international nonprofit that sends physical therapists to work with amputees and disabled patients at the Hanger Amputee Clinic at Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Deschapelles.
Her mission is funded by a recent grant from ChildFund International in Richmond.
"I've wanted to do something like this since I was 15 years old," said Anderson, who was inspired as a teen by the medical volunteer work of family members. "It's always been about finding the right time, and the right fit. I've been working at the Gait Center for a year now, and because many of our patients are amputees, that's given me much more confidence in my abilities."
At the clinic in Deschapelles, Anderson will work with a team of health care professionals, including prosthetists. While many of the patients lost a limb in the earthquake, others have been waiting for a prosthesis for years.
In 2000, David Lawrence, MSPT, ATC, founder and president of the Gait Center, helped create Walking Free -- Physicians for Peace's program for comprehensive amputee care.
Between March and November 2010, PFP volunteer physical therapists contributed more than 1,700 hours of service to Haiti's disabled population. In that time, they completed more than 1,300 patient visits and helped 635 amputee patients learn to walk with new prosthetic limbs.
With headquarters in Norfolk, VA, the nonprofit Physicians for Peace has been in operation for 20 years, and has programs in 22 countries and offices in Manila, the Philippines and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
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