With only days to go before seven children were due to undergo crucial spinal surgeries in the Dominican Republic, pediatric radiologist Dr. Madelyn Stazzone, co-founder and president of the St. Louis-based Pediatric Orthopedic Project (POP), received an urgent phone call. The Santiago hospital where she and her 14-member team were due to carry out the surgeries was not ready. One of two anesthesia machines wasn’t working, and the renovations that had begun months earlier were not completed. “That was the tipping point,” Stazzone says. “I had to drop what I was doing and go.” Her emergency plan was to secure a private hospital to house the surgeries, using the government-run hospital only for patient recuperation. In the end, however, the private hospital agreed to accommodate and care for the patients. “We ended up with seven rooms for seven children. It felt like a miracle,” she says.
In the five years since POP was founded, Stazzone has led seven such missions and treated 56 children with scoliosis (spinal curvature) and other orthopedic problems. In that time, volunteer POP doctors also have educated local medics on the latest in pediatric orthopedic practices, allowing for continuity of care—a vital, sustainable part of the nonprofit’s mission.
Scoliosis is a correctable condition, but in its extreme form, it can cause death due to impaired lung and heart function. Although the exact number of affected people isn’t known, the need in this small country is great since the gene pool on the island is relatively small and genetic predisposition may be amplified. “So many children here are very poor,” Stazzone says. “They have no insurance and no way to get corrected without us.”
In conjunction with Dominican orthopedist Dr. Miguel Luna, the seven children were selected from a group of 23 by Stazzone’s husband, Enrico Stazzone, POP co-founder and a pediatric orthopedic surgeon at Mid-County Orthopaedic Surgery & Sports Medicine. “We needed to pick the severest cases and those close to the cutoff age of 18,” Madelyn Stazzone explains. This year, the Stazzones’ eldest son, Enrico, accompanied his parents on the mission. “We always like to give a little extra love to the hospital when we are there,” Stazzone says, referring to the decorating and repairs her son, a recent Marquette High School graduate, planned to do over the eight-day period.
In addition to those 56 operations, another 89 have been carried out by Dominican doctors trained by the St. Louis team, and four children with particularly complex conditions have been brought to St. Louis for treatment. All these procedures have been performed free of charge, and were made possible by private donations. The children brought to the U.S. were the result of a collaboration between POP and World Pediatric Project, which provides quality, critical-care health services to children in the Caribbean and Central America.
Stazzone says POP has grown tremendously over the past year and because of it, the nonprofit has decided to postpone its fundraiser for a few months. “We felt it was necessary to focus all our efforts on the mission trip and the four patients coming to the U.S,” she explains, adding that the new date in February 2018 means that donations for the remainder of 2017 are urgently needed. All dollars coming in will be used to fund annual surgical missions, education of local doctors and nurses, necessary equipment and supplies, and ‘beautification’ projects. Donations may be made through the POP website at popstl.org.
Since its founding in 2012, Pediatric Orthopedic Project has provided free surgeries to 122 impoverished children with severe scoliosis in the Dominican Republic. Its annual fundraiser is planned for Feb. 10, 2018, at The Schlafly Tap Room. Pictured on the cover with patient Dixmely Perez Perez: POP Junior Ambassador John Delaney and POP Ambassadors Courtney Delaney, Tara Crater and Karen Klarich. For more information and to donate, visit popstl.org.
Pictured at top: Dixmely Perez Perez was brought to St. Louis from the Dominican Republic for treatment.
Cover design by Julie Streiler | Cover photo by Tim Parker Photography
