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:
“Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized—the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?”
—David Hume (1711–1776)