Smile Train
Thanks to a generous grant from Smile Train, the Plastic Surgery Educational Foundation announces this Call for Grant Applications for members conducting service missions to developing countries in 2009.
The Smile Train, Inc., a not-for-profit charitable organization, and the Plastic Surgery Educational Foundation (PSEF), a not-for-profit education and research organization, have established this program to expand care to children requiring cleft lip and palate surgery in developing countries.
This program will provide funds for individual physicians and other not-for-profit organizations in need of supplemental funding to defray costs associated with conducting service missions. It will also allow for capital expenditures to purchase needed equipment, as well as limited educational materials for host surgeons and facilities. The overarching goal is to assist established service missions increase the number of children that can have access to surgical care for cleft lip and palate repair.
Grants will be considered up to $50,000.
Awards are made to sponsoring organizations or individuals. Team leaders should be ASPS members actively involved in cleft care. If a team leader is not a member of ASPS, the team must have an ASPS member on the team and participating in the scheduled service mission. Support surgical team members must be board certified or board eligible in their specialty. Teams must focus 50% of their time or greater on cleft care.
In addition, the grant recipient trip cannot be to a site where a Smile Train partner is located; visit www.smiletrain.org for a list of locations. The service mission team must have conducted a minimum of three successful missions.
Interested members can download the Grant Application and Guidelines from the ASPS Web site: www.plasticsurgery.org (click on Medical Professionals). All requests must be submitted on the official Grant Application with eight copies of the application and support documentation included sent to:
PSEF Volunteers in Plastic Surgery Committee
444 E. Algonquin Road
Arlington Heights, IL 60005
You can also email preilly@plasticsurgery.org. Support documentation should include an estimated budget as outlined on the application, or attached as a separate document. A telephone conference call will be part of the application process.
Individuals applying for the grants understand they must provide PSEF with a final written report of the mission and enter patient data into the Smile Train Smile Train Express data collection repository. In addition, recipients must agree to comply with the Smile Train Guidelines for Missions. Review of the VIPS Guidelines for Missions and the Smile Train Safety and Quality Improvement Protocol is strongly encouraged.
William Schneider, MD, Chair
PSEF Volunteers in Plastic Surgery Committee