After accompanying a surgeon friend on a medical mission in the Philippines, Fox Chapel plastic surgeon Jack Demos, MD, found the experience so meaningful that he continued to seek out opportunities to volunteer his skills.
His passion to help others led to the creation of Surgicorps International in 1994. It is a volunteer-run organization through which surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, medical personnel, and lay people travel to countries like Nepal, Tanzania, Peru, Brazil, the Philippines, Guatemala, and Vietnam to perform reconstructive surgeries, often on disfigured burn victims and children born with cleft lips and palates.
Dr. Demos said, “You see these children and you think, ‘How can I not help?’ If we can allow one child to fulfill a dream or simply to be accepted as a member of society, then we have been successful.”
The Surgicorps volunteers average four two-week trips annually, often performing 30 to 60 surgeries per week.
"In developing countries, patients may have walked for days for an opportunity to be screened. We’ll treat anyone who walks into our screening room, so we try to be prepared," said Dr. Demos.
"Our greatest satisfaction comes from knowing that a single operation can change someone’s life forever."