Mission:BRAIN, a global neurosurgical charity, has joined InterSurgeon. Although it has taken some time to sign up, they have been aware of InterSurgeon for a while and are now ready to use InterSurgeon to engage with a wider global surgery community. InterSurgeon spoke with CEO April Sabangan and Mission:BRAIN fellow Garrett Thrash about coming to InterSurgeon.
Empowering global neurosurgery
It all started in 2011 when a group of dedicated neurosurgical team members working at the University of California, San Francisco, started travelling to Mexico to do medical service visits. The 5 co-founders were Dr Michael Lawton, Dr Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, Lisa Hannegan (Nurse Practitioner for Neurosurgery), Will Aarsheim (a medical device representative) and April Sabangan ( Clinical Nurse supervisor in neurovascular for Dr Lawton and current CEO); “We were doing medical service trips in Mexico because Dr. Quinones was from Mexico and was invited to go back and give back to his home country. So we all tagged along and then did some teaching when we first started and realized really quickly that there was something that good that we can do and we needed to formally incorporate.” Fast forward a few years and what started as a single mission in Mexico for Mission:BRAIN quickly expanded to the Philippines then Haiti. The founders realised quickly that they could make a big impact in neurosurgical services globally. During the global pandemic, they started online webinars which soon became extremely popular; “They spread like wildfire.” This is when they started opening chapters globally; “Our medical service trips are now few and far between because we realised there were other ways we can be more helpful [to the global neurosurgical community]. The chapters are really the backbone of the organisation and they come together for global programs.” Mission:BRAIN’s aim is; “to make it as collaborative as possible. People coming in with different strengths and they bring different things to the table”
The three pronged approach
**Mission:BRAIN** is a nonprofit organisation committed to improving neurosurgical care in underserved regions of the world. The organisation’s core focus is on **treating, educating, and empowering** individuals in low-resource settings through a variety of programs that range from medical missions to research, mentorship, and capacity building; “We’ve had a research peer mentorship program that started last year. We’ve been doing a lot more research. We also have capacity building projects. And I think that’s where probably InterSurgeon can be the most helpful for us. Just a couple of months ago we trained 26 nurses and sponsored two surgeon to train in Morocco together with the WFNS.”
Mission:BRAIN also provide scholarships. At the moment, they have 3 including one specifically for women in surgery: “So we started the Women in neurosurgery scholarship last year, which we collaborated with the CNS Foundation and WINS.” One of their major initiatives; The Bridge program, has been involved in gathering equipment and supplies from, predominantly, the USA and redistributing it to LMICs. This is an ongoing project and they are currently working with the ministry of health in Sierra Leone; “There is no neurosurgical service speak out for the entire country. There were several incidents that happened before they finally decided to reach out. And then one of our members, who was a Sierra Leonean American neurosurgery resident, went back home and she became the link for all of this.”
What’s next
Now that Mission:BRAIN is a member of InterSurgeon; “our organisation is looking forward to our collaboration with InterSurgeon because I think [InterSurgeon members] have a wealth of experience from different people doing different things along the same lines and goals. So I think that’s sort of a resource for us. Obviously, when we started as an organisation, we were much more focused on small changes. Now we’re looking at systems. We’re realising that we have that capability and we’re addressing gaps that we can address. And but then at the same time, we also need other people to share with us their experiences and expertise.”
Mission:BRAIN is currently looking for equipment for their Bridge Project in Sierra Leone, to see their request click here.
To see their organisation profile click here.
