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Mission
Statement & Program Description: Physicians Outreach International (“POI”) is a non-profit project with a mission to help doctors throughout the world who don't have the facilities, training or medicines needed to care for refugee and dislocated populations suffering from conditions brought on by stress, infections and insufficient diet often resulting from poverty, war, famine and civil strife. POI is chartered to bring together the public, private and professional medical communities in support networks to help doctors in developing countries provide care, diagnosis and treatment to their patients. These support networks of hospitals, medical universities and independent physicians provide 24-hours on-going teaching support, distance diagnosis, equipment, pharmaceuticals and nutritional supplementation to doctors struggling to provide care with little or no material or medicines. POI helps establish communications links through land and satellite phone systems to these doctors in remote areas so that the training, diagnosis and requests for material can be made quickly and effectively to help save lives. Secondly, POI helps secure the right material and medicines which can be shipped quickly throughout the world where it's needed. POI was first launched in the Summer of 2000, when the Medical University of South Carolina, Shelter for Life and the National Nutraceutical Center joined together to help establish a distance diagnosis and support network for the physicians in the Western Sahara refugee camps in the Sahara Desert. A satellite communications system with x-ray scanners and computers was installed to enable the doctors to share diagnosis over the internet. Through this system, they can correspond with any physician or college anywhere in the world and request the needed pharmaceuticals, vaccines, equipment and training. Solar refrigeration units for certain vaccines and materials are also being provided to help protect vaccines from the extreme heat of the desert. A second project is currently underway in Tajikistan to rebuild doctors residences ravaged by civil war, and to rebuild and refit a hospital with equipment, refrigeration, nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals and communication equipment to help physicians care for the internally dislocated refugees and villagers. The philosophical centerpiece of POI is to enable doctors to provide dependable medical care and facilities, without which community rebuilding cannot occur. This is only possible if the support network is created through partnerships which provide the right kind of support, equipment, structures, communications, medicines and nutritional supplements. The technical centerpiece of the distance diagnosis effort are special ISDN satellite modems and equipment which allow the doctors to communicate with other physicians via the Internet by e-mail, scan and send x-rays, cardiograms and medical records, conduct live video conferencing for consultation and surgery and generally connect with the larger world body to request urgently needed supplies, funding and advice. POI initiates multi-partner projects by making grants of funds and nutraceuticals in portions to be matched by the medical, private and NGO communities. Though precise matching is not absolutely required, what is required is a shared sense of obligation to help those least able to help themselves, quickly without red-tape or bureaucracy, to help doctors provide immediate care and support to their at-risk patients. POI projects are chartered to various established medical teaching institutions, hospitals and non-governmental organizations which have a sincere commitment to expand their teaching, outreach and humanitarian service to help these vulnerable populations. Physicians
Outreach International
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