Educating the Healthcare Professionals of Tomorrow in Cyprus

Shriners Children’s is changing lives every day through its three-part mission to provide innovative pediatric specialty care, world-class research and outstanding medical education.

While our healthcare system has many brick-and-mortar locations throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico, our reach extends far beyond those physical walls. In an effort to care for more kids in more places, staff of Shriners Children’s shares its compassion and expertise across the world.

Taking Our Efforts Abroad

Our physicians and clinicians routinely travel to provide medical care to children around the world, as well as share their knowledge with the local medical communities. Over the last 100 years, Shriners Children’s has treated more than 1.5 million children from more than 170 countries, and provided education to healthcare professionals from all over the globe along the way.

For more than 40 years, Shriners Children’s has partnered with the George and Thelma Paraskevaides Foundation to hold annual outreach clinics on the island of Cyprus, providing medical care to children from the country and surrounding area. During the past four decades, Shriners Children’s has seen more than 40,000 patients in Nicosia, Cyprus-based outreach clinics, and surgically treated more than 4,000 Cypriot patients in the United States. Additionally, medical education is provided for local physicians and other clinical professionals, as well as medical students, through an educational affiliation with the University of Nicosia Medical School in Cyprus.

In 2018, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Ministry of Health of Cyprus, the George and Thelma Paraskevaides Foundation and Shriners Children’s. The agreement has provided a foundation for the expansion of collaboration in education and research, further strengthening our efforts in the country. A pediatric orthopedist from Cyprus has already been sent to Shriners Children’s for training, with additional training opportunities for physicians, physical therapists and prosthetists planned for the future.

This Year’s Outreach Clinic and Educational Lectures

Staff from Shriners Children’s recently returned from this year’s Cyprus outreach, which consisted of providing pediatric medical care, as well as educational opportunities, for medical students and physicians from the island and neighboring countries.

Two Shriners Children’s physicians gave lectures at the University of Nicosia Medical School. Amer Samdani, M.D., chief of surgery at Shriners Children’s Philadelphia, discussed the latest innovative procedures used to treat children with scoliosis. David Westberry, M.D., medical director of the Shriners Children's Greenville Motion Analysis Center, presented on complex orthopedic conditions, with a specific focus on the evolution of treatment for clubfoot conditions.

In attendance were medical students from all over the world, many of which also volunteered at the outreach clinic, either observing or providing interpreting services for the Greek- and Arabic-speaking patients scheduled for consults. These medical students also participated in the genomics research activities, part of the Shriners Children’s Genomics Institute, helping patients and families, and collecting DNA samples.

These international educational efforts are all part of Shriners Children’s mission to extend our reach by helping more kids in more places, now and in the future.