Donald Lalonde wins international award for work in Ghana

A Saint John plastic surgeon is being celebrated for his work teaching hand surgery to new surgeons in Ghana.

Dr. Donald Lalonde received the Golden Apple Award from Health Volunteers Overseas for developing a reverse fellowship in Kumasi, Ghana, a city of more than twomillion people.

Most teaching fellowships bring young surgeons from Africa to Canada or the United Statesto learn.

But Lalonde says the doctors often stay in North America instead of returning home, creating a brain drain.

In his model, Canadian and American hand surgeons travel to Africa for two weeks at a time to teach hand surgery and hand therapy.

"You take the teachers and bring them over there," Lalonde said.

"It's been very rewarding."

"West Africa is one of the poorest places in the world and Ghana is a stable place in the middle of that. It's a good place to help bring skills in," he added

Saint John is at the forefront of hand surgery research, where Lalonde has helped establish a hand surgery technique where patients stay awake during the procedure.

"It's a little like going to the dentist," he said.

Patients are numbed with local anesthesia, have their surgery and then go home.

You take the teachers andbring them over there.- Dr. DonaldLalonde

He said in Africa, the cost of general anesthesia prohibits many hand surgeries and wide awake surgery is a breakthrough technique for the developing world.

In Canada, the surgery has decreased the cost of carein New Brunswick.

Lalonde said Health Volunteers Overseas has also established seminars where surgeons from the United Statesand Canada teach young plastic surgeons in Kumasi hand surgery through online seminars

"It's another novel way to teach people rather than pay expensive flights to fly over there or have them fly over here," he said.

He said in Africa, many countries have bypassed telephone lines and gone straight to cellphones and internet access is quite good.

"I think internet teaching is definitely going to be the way of the future," he said.