Richard Wohns, MD, is involved in multiple service endeavors to educate spine surgeons and serve patients in need.
Dr. Wohns, founder and medical director of Puyallup, Wash.-based NeoSpine, joined the "Becker's Healthcare Spine and Orthopedic Podcast" on July 6 to discuss his work.
Listen to the full episode here.
Nepal Spine Foundation: The Nepal Spine Foundation has two goals, Dr. Wohns said. The first is to train neurosurgeons in Nepal and the second is to provide spine care to indigenous patients. Nepal has a population of 30 million and only about 100 neurosurgeons, according to Dr. Wohns.
"We're providing instrumentation, medical implants, instruments and all the things that are needed for typical spine cases such as fusions, artificial discs replacements and minimally invasive surgeries," he said. "We're bringing over equipment, particularly implants, that have been donated by medical device companies in the U.S. Our second mission is to help care for needy patients by giving them the implants and the surgical equipment that's necessary to do their surgeries. We also make sure that they have access to technology if it is lacking for their particular needs."
Mazama Spine Summit: Dr. Wohns organizes the annual summit and came up with the idea for it as a "think tank for cutting-edge spine surgeons." He said areas the summit has explored include legal issues, entrepreneurship and surgical approaches.
"It became not just the think tank, but a meeting of minds of people who were neurosurgeons or orthopedic spine surgeons doing cutting edge outpatient, minimally invasive surgeries with new enabling technologies," Dr. Wohns said.