Bioventus Grants Committee Funds Medical Mission in the Pacific
Palau is an island nation in the Western Pacific. Its economy consists primarily of subsistence farming, fishing and tourism. Isolated, and with a per capita gross domestic product of $8,900, Palau and its people are regularly visited by medical missionaries.
At the end of last summer a group of clinicians from Walnut Creek, California-based Muir Orthopaedic Specialists, approached Bioventus for a product donation to treat patients in Palau suffering with knee osteoarthritis. Emily Crow, a physician’s assistant at Muir, made the formal request. She and her husband, Dr Brad Crow, an orthopaedic surgeon also at Muir, are associated with an organization called Canvasback Missions.
Canvasback has providing healthcare to pacific island nations since 1981 and in 2017 it received a similar donation from DuPuy Synthes.
For many years, Bioventus has donated funds and products to support grant requests for medical missions. When the requests come in, it’s up to Michelle Deneke, Senior Professional Affairs Coordinator, to do some detective work to ensure the requestor is compliant and aligns with the goals of the committee.
“We have relationships with many medical missionaries, but we had never worked with Canvasback before,” said Michelle. “The organization checked out and although they asked for Gelsyn-3, because they had used a single HA injection product during their last visit to Palau, we offered them 100 syringes of DUROLANE.”
Mark Harbaugh, Group Director of Professional Affairs and Medical Education for Bioventus chairs the company’s Grants Committee which meets monthly to review all grant requests. These days the other voting representatives of the committee include Derek Hurdle, Megan Osorio, Winnie Weitsen, Peter Heeckt and Tony D’Adamio, and all take part to review and approve grant requests.
“We usually get about four requests per year for support of medical missions,” said Mark. “This one was approved because it supports a grant committee goal of supporting underserved communities.”
As a way of expressing their gratitude, Emily also followed up post-mission to share its results.
“I just wanted to personally thank you for the generous donation of DUROLANE for our orthopedic mission trip to Palau,” said Emily, “Many patients were repeat customers from the prior trip happy with the results. We were also able to train the two resident surgeons to perform joint injections so they can continue to use the donated product. We had an incredible experience and truly appreciate the support of Bioventus.”
If you know of an organization that conducts medical missions and believe Bioventus can help, please refer them to this link for review and consideration by the Grants Committee.
If you have any other questions about Grants and Donations feel free to reach out to Mark Harbaugh or Michelle Deneke.