{"id":128708,"date":"2024-03-22T23:06:27","date_gmt":"2024-03-23T03:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=128708"},"modified":"2024-03-22T23:18:33","modified_gmt":"2024-03-23T03:18:33","slug":"st-lukes-celebrates-10th-anniversary-of-medical-mission-trips-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=128708","title":{"rendered":"St. Luke\u2019s Celebrates 10th Anniversary of Medical Mission Trips Abroad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo caption: A donated St. Luke\u2019s ambulance in Africa.<\/em><\/p>\n

April 2024 marks the 10-year-anniversary of the St. Luke\u2019s International Medicine Program (SLIMP), a non-profit, physician-driven project that provides free medical care, physician training and supplies to struggling countries across the globe.<\/p>\n

A fundraising event to benefit SLIMP is planned for March 26, 5-8 p.m., at Lost Tavern Brewing, 782 Main Street in Hellertown.\u00a0<\/strong>Food trucks, live music, and a silent auction of African masks, paintings and other memorabilia will raise funds for the program.\u00a0A \u201ccrutch drive\u201d will reward donors of the walking aids with a coupon for a free beverage.<\/strong>\u00a0St. Luke\u2019s staff and the general public are invited to attend the event or donate to SLIMP. To make a secure online donation, visit\u00a0Support the St. Luke\u2019s International Medical Program (SLIMP) (slhn.org)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Over the first decade of SLIMP, more than 30 different medical professionals from St. Luke\u2019s have participated in the trips to Cameroon, Central Africa; Guatemala, Central America; and the Gambia, West Africa.<\/p>\n

The program\u2019s founder, St. Luke\u2019s General Surgeon Richard Sharpe, MD, notes that, while the original purpose of SLIMP was to offer general surgery residents the opportunity to learn and practice medicine overseas in needy nations, its goal now focuses on promoting sustainable improvement in access and quality of health care where it\u2019s greatly needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe program has grown, because of the increased medical needs in these poor places, the interest and participation of St. Luke\u2019s network and clinicians, and the financial support from our Graduate Medical Education office,\u201d said Dr. Sharpe. \u201cIt\u2019s incredibly rewarding to donate services and supplies to these needy countries that otherwise wouldn\u2019t have them.\u201d<\/p>\n

St. Luke\u2019s doctors have treated or impacted the lives of tens of thousands of patients at the Mbingo Baptist Hospital, Cameroon, alone and taught medicine and surgery to more than 200 students and residents there.<\/p>\n

This year, his colleague, Najma Khanani, MD, an internist, psychiatrist and associate director of St. Luke\u2019s rural psychiatry program, will introduce the program to India, a country that she knows well. Two psychiatry residents will accompany Dr. Khanani to India. The trio also will depart in April and serve the local population in a medical clinic in Dhurb, Northwest India. This facility was\u00a0opened by the village community, support by Dr. Khanani\u2019s father, who\u00a0was born and lived for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m carrying on my Dad\u2019s vision of helping this poor population,\u201d said Dr. Khanani. \u201cWe will treat anyone who comes through the door.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Sharpe has organized and made the trips twice yearly to the rural Cameroon hospital, joined by attending physicians, fellows, residents and medical students. In early April, he\u2019ll leave on his 18th<\/sup>, month-long mission trip to\u00a0the 500-bed Mbingo hospital.\u00a0Physicians from general surgery, OBGYN, critical care and pathology will travel with him, as will Dr. Sharpe\u2019s daughter, Lauren Sharpe, PA-C, emergency medicine\/critical care fellow at St. Luke\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Their days will be a blur of activity, often lasting 12-15 hours. They\u2019ll \u201cround\u201d on hospitalized patients, teach physicians and assess clinic patients in the morning. For the rest of the day, they\u2019ll be in the OR and may have on-call duties and emergencies to treat well into the night.<\/p>\n

The individual cost for making these trips is $3,000 – $3,500, and most St. Luke\u2019s providers go as volunteers. Much of the funding comes from donations to the program and the GME Program\u2019s Endowment Fund.<\/p>\n

Over the years, Dr. Sharpe has collected and shipped hundreds of crates of supplies and equipment to Cameroon, including a \u201cretired\u201d St. Luke\u2019s ambulance, which still is used in Cameroon, and mechanical breathing ventilators, suction machines and endoscopy towers. He\u2019s gathering used crutches to send to the hospital for leg trauma patients.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, Dr. Sharpe says he hopes to expand the program to the Caribbean or Central America.\u00a0He will return to Cameroon in November, when Dr. Khanani plans to expand the rural psychiatry program there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a vacation, it\u2019s hard work,\u201d Dr. Sharpe said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no greater reward than being of service to someone other than oneself.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information, please visit the SLIMP website:\u00a0www.stlukesabroad.wordpress.com<\/a>, or\u00a0email Dr Sharpe at:\u00a0richard.sharpe@sluhn.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

About St. Luke\u2019s<\/strong><\/p>\n

Founded in 1872,\u00a0St. Luke\u2019s University Health Network<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(SLUHN) is a fully integrated, regional, non-profit network of more than 20,000 employees providing services at 15 campuses and 300+ outpatient sites.\u00a0 With annual net revenue of $3.4 billion, the Network\u2019s service area includes 11 counties in two states: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey. St. Luke\u2019s hospitals operate the largest network of trauma centers in Pennsylvania, with the Bethlehem Campus being home to St. Luke\u2019s Children\u2019s Hospital.<\/p>\n

Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke\u2019s is the preeminent teaching hospital in central-eastern Pennsylvania.\u00a0 In partnership with Temple University, the Network established the Lehigh Valley\u2019s first and only four-year medical school campus.\u00a0 It also operates the nation\u2019s longest continuously operating School of Nursing, established in 1884, and 45 fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with more than 400 residents and fellows. In 2022, St. Luke\u2019s, a member of the Children\u2019s Hospital Association, opened the Lehigh Valley\u2019s first and only free-standing facility dedicated entirely to kids.<\/p>\n

SLUHN is the only Lehigh Valley-based health care system to earn Medicare\u2019s\u00a0five-star<\/em>\u00a0ratings (the highest) for quality, efficiency and patient satisfaction.\u00a0 It is both a Leapfrog Group and Healthgrades\u00a0Top Hospital<\/em>\u00a0and a Newsweek World\u2019s\u00a0Best Hospital<\/em>.\u00a0 The Network\u2019s flagship University Hospital has earned the\u00a0100 Top Major Teaching Hospital<\/em>\u00a0designation from Fortune\/PINC AI 11 times total and eight years in a row, including in 2023 when it was identified as THE #4 TEACHING HOSPITAL IN THE COUNTRY.\u00a0 In 2021, St. Luke\u2019s was identified as one of the\u00a015 Top Health Systems<\/em>\u00a0nationally.\u00a0 Utilizing the Epic electronic medical record (EMR) system for both inpatient and outpatient services, the Network is a multi-year recipient of the\u00a0Most Wired<\/em>\u00a0award recognizing the breadth of the SLUHN\u2019s information technology applications such as telehealth, online scheduling and online pricing information. \u00a0The Network is also recognized as one of the state\u2019s lowest cost providers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Information provided to TVL by:
\nSam Kennedy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo caption: A donated St. Luke\u2019s ambulance in Africa. April 2024 marks the 10-year-anniversary of the St. Luke\u2019s International Medicine Program (SLIMP), a non-profit, physician-driven project that provides free medical … Continue reading St. Luke\u2019s Celebrates 10th Anniversary of Medical Mission Trips Abroad<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128709,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[69,482],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-valley","category-press-release-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/slimp.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128708"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=128708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/128709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=128708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=128708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=128708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}