The McDuffie Progress recently covered a great article about Surgeons of Service in the People and Places section of the Augusta 24, 2017 weekly paper. The press release outlined the recent activity of Surgeons of Service as well as their desire to partner up with additional schools in the area.
Caitlin Boland of the McDuffie Progress covered the story about the brother-sister duo of doctors in Thomson Georgia who work far outside the walls of their office to help families and children in need in the Dominican Republic. Christopher and Allison Menke had gone on several mission trips before, and Christopher Menke said they saw a need for medical care in under privileged nations. They decided to begin Surgeons of Service in 2015. “We are both surgeons, and we wanted to provide service to others,” Christopher Menke said. “Our goal is to keep it open where anyone can help and to get other specialties involved.”
About Surgeons of Service
The focus for the non profit organization is currently in a small, remote town called Las Terrenas in the Dominican Republic. Menke said the mission crew takes a three hour direct flight from Atlanta to Santa Domingo, DR, then travel by car for two more hours before arriving in the town.”We go for about a week and set up a clinic at a local hospital or facility,” Christopher Menke said. “We work with people there and nurses who go ahead of us and let people know we are coming. When we get there, there are 100 people just waiting for us.” The clinic provides patients with foot and ankle medical care that they wouldn’t otherwise receive, and the doctors provide basic medical services such as dispensing a pair of shoes or shoe inserts, braces, offering ibuprofen, cortisone injections and wound care to more advanced surgical services.
Making A Difference
In addition to providing medical care, the nonprofit also collects new or gently used shoes in the areas around their two offices, Greensboro GA and Thomson GA. Shoes are collected from patients to take to the DR as well as to disperse in the local area to children in need. “We were running in a 5k charity race in the DR when I noticed I was running in Nike tennis shoes, but a lot of the children were either running bare foot or in sandals, ” Christopher Menke said. “I thought we could pre vent a lot of their foot problems by providing shoes. We also noticed that there were children locally who struggle with getting new shoes which got the local idea going.” Christopher Menke said he got the idea started by giving away toys and shoes that his children had grown out of and then began taking donations from others.
The entire article published in the McDuffie Progress can be downloaded here: SOS 8.24.17 Press Release
Dr. Christopher Menke and Dr. Allison Menke are podiatric surgeons within Da Vinci Foot and Ankle