by Brad Chrisman
Dr. Daniel Agbo-Panzo, a pediatric surgeon who works at the largest hospital in Guinea (West Africa), discovered Global HELP in 2011 while searching for documentation on treating clubfoot.
“I was very happy when I found Global HELP,” he says. “I work in a teaching hospital, but we don’t have a library.”
The manual that Agbo-Panzo found – Clubfoot: Ponseti Management – is one of Global HELP’s most popular publications. Now in its third edition, the 32-page booklet has been translated into 35 languages, and medical professionals and families in more than 150 countries have downloaded the PDFs.
Agbo-Panzo says he already was familiar with the clubfoot casting technique (developed a decade ago by Dr. Ignacio Ponseti) that is described in the manual. “But with the Global HELP materials, I now teach it to my colleagues,” he says, noting that the French-language translation has been especially useful in his country.
In addition to the clubfoot manual, Agbo-Panzo says he makes frequent use of the Atlas Of Pediatric Orthopaedic Surgery, a 908-page textbook on DVD that Global HELP distributes for free to doctors in the developing world.
And he is particularly grateful for Paediatric Surgery: A Comprehensive Text For Africa, the two-volume, 800-page textbook published by Global HELP in 2010. Written by medical experts who live or work in Africa, the book “has become a bible in my daily practice,” he says.
What is the biggest challenge facing Agbo-Panzo and his colleagues in Guinea? “I cannot tell you what is the biggest, because all is the biggest for us,” he says. “We have a lot of problems; a lot of challenges.”
Agbo-Panzo is dedicated to improving medical care in his country and beyond, and he is pleased to have Global HELP as a partner: “In renewing my thanks for your initiative, I assure you of my full availability to participate in the Global HELP’s radiation throughout the world.”
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