The St. Louis-based Pediatric Orthopedic Group, a nonprofit organization with a team of orthopedic surgeons and healthcare professionals, travels annually to the Dominican Republic to perform corrective spinal surgeries on children suffering from scoliosis.
The physicians tend to "fix problems creatively" with a sort of "MacGyver attitude" due to challenges such as broken equipment or lack of supplies, said Enrico Stazzone, MD, president of the Pediatric Orthopedic Project, to Fox 2 Now.
Donations and grants fund the annual trip, with additional money after the surgery donated back to the Arturo Grullón Children’s Hospital in Santiago, Dominican Republic. The team has performed 34 corrective spinal surgeries in the Dominican Republic, with one other team completing 60 surgeries in Santiago, according to the report.