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Homestead Case Study

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Near UCSF’s San Francisco General campus, a tired doctor could be forgiven for overlooking The Homestead as a happy hour choice. With peanut shells on the floor, tastefully ironic boudoir paintings on the walls, and cocktails with names like Corpse Reviver #2, the bar could be yet another Mission hipster hole-in-the-wall. But The Homestead is more than just a place for bearded twenty-somethings (and their omnipresent dogs) to get a pickle and a $2 Tecate. In fact, the bar is the birthplace of UCSF’s Institute for Global Orthopedics and Traumatology, a small, innovative program with big worldwide intentions. Sure, IGOT has a proper home in an elegant brick building near General’s main entrance, but the heart and soul of the program is the Thursday …show more content…

For young doctors like Whitaker, the IGOT program is a powerful attractant, drawing top-notch talent away from other prestigious medical schools. Today, 75% of UCSF’s orthopedic residents choose to participate in the international rotation. And their participation has lasting effects. A study published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery found that “participants were more likely than nonparticipants to believe that physicians have an obligation to the medically underserved…” When compared with their peers at other residencies, IGOT participants were not only more likely to work internationally after residency, but also more than twice as likely to volunteer …show more content…

Between 2010 and 2013, 160 doctors from 25 countries participated in the course in San Francisco. Prior to the course, the 2012 attendees estimated that they collectively performed between 580 and 970 amputations annually because of soft tissue injuries. These same doctors, when questioned again one year later, reported that they had performed 620 flaps, with 574 considered to be successful. Even better, those 2012 participants taught flap techniques to 28 of their local colleagues. It’s impossible to estimate how much pain, suffering, and economic calamities were prevented along with the

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