History
The idea for the organization was sparked by an article by Dr. Ralph Crawshaw, published in the December 1984 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. In the article, Dr. Crawshaw urged fellow medical practitioners to "make a substantial difference to your colleagues in developing countries" and cited the example of Orthopaedics Overseas. In 1986, the Orthopaedics Overseas Board of Directors voted to become the first division of the newly created Health Volunteers Overseas. Two anesthesiologists went to Ethiopia for the first HVO volunteer trip later that year.
On August 1, 2011 HVO celebrated its 25th anniversary. Since opening its doors in Washington, D.C. in 1986, HVO has sent more than 4372 HVO volunteers to complete more than 7,947 assignments overseas in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and Oceania. Volunteers are drawn from the fields of anesthesia, dermatology, hematology, internal medicine, nursing education, oncology, oral health, orthopaedics, pediatrics, physical therapy, wound and lymphedemia management, emergency medicine, mental health, and pharmacology.
Read more about this topic: Health Volunteers Overseas
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of our era is the nauseating and repulsive history of the crucifixion of the procreative body for the glorification of the spirit.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)