How to Host A Domestic Hand Surgery Outreach Day

Abstract

Domestic outreach is an integral yet often overlooked aspect of medical volunteerism. Since 2016, the American Society for Surgery of the Hand's Touching Hands initiative has supported domestic outreach Hand Days in the United States. The purpose of this article is to provide information and guidance to hand surgeons interested in hosting their own domestic hand surgery outreach. Thorough planning is essential to a successful outreach, particularly because each outreach site will have unique considerations. Surgeon team leaders must navigate the infrastructure and legal factors specific to their practice site. Outreach patients should be screened for both financial and surgical eligibility, although there are multiple pathways for the referral and screening process. Patient evaluation also requires coordination of imaging and diagnostic testing for a low-resource population. Multidisciplinary volunteer teams are necessary to provide all perioperative services and are typically recruited from the host practice site. Some potential challenges of domestic outreach include institutional charity care policies, legal concerns, and operative space availability. Because of complex socioeconomic situations, it may be difficult to contact and coordinate care for outreach patients. Despite these potential barriers, domestic outreach offers tremendous benefit for patients who otherwise lack access to surgical care. Even one yearly outreach day can avert years of disability and can have an incredible impact on patients' functional ability and quality of life. Volunteer teams also reap the benefits of outreach by promoting intraorganizational volunteerism, renewing commitment to medical professionalism, and decreasing symptoms of burnout. Hand surgeons have a unique opportunity to provide subspecialized surgical care to underserved patients as the Touching Hands initiative continues to grow and develop. We hope that hand surgeons will consider participating in advancing the Touching Hands mission to provide life-changing surgical care in the world's poorest communities, including our own.

Keywords: Community involvement; Touching Hands project; domestic outreach; physician volunteerism.