Peter Daly, MD, is an orthopedic surgeon who's dedicated a significant part of his career to serving others.
Dr. Daly is a surgeon at Woodbury, Minn.-based Summit Orthopedics, and he founded One World Surgery, a nonprofit bringing medical services in Honduras. He was interviewed by guest host Michael Redlerm, MD, on the "Becker's Spine and Orthopedic Podcast" July 20.
Here are three key quotes from the conversation. Listen to the full episode here.
On founding One World Surgery with his wife, LuLu: "We co-founded it in the early 2000s. It's a nonprofit for surgeons. That's how it was initiated, because we wanted to get involved with the humanitarian program that was helping the poor. We in the United States know very well that we have a large propensity of resources that the majority of the rest of the world does not have. So if we can use our resources for good and for elevating our fellow man and other parts of the world, that's really that's what contributes to us being the best version of ourselves and our serving."
On why he volunteered in Honduras: "I volunteered with Orthopedics Overseas, which is a wonderful organization, and I really enjoyed it. But I couldn't involve my family in the way that I wanted to … So my wife and I said, you know, we've got to do this as a family and we have to have activities that the other nonmedical family members can be involved with and enjoy being with one another. That's how we wound up in Honduras, because I just stopped doing the Orthopedics Overseas stuff and I volunteered with my whole family at this children's home in Honduras."
On serving a child in need: "We kind of fell in love with one of these little 9-year-old kids in the children's home who needed help, but really couldn't [get] it in Honduras. So we brought her back to Minnesota in St. Paul, where I lived and practiced. She lived with us for a year, and we took care of some surgical problems that she needed over that year. But we had to take her back.
We thought, 'Wow, she's part of our life. We can't just leave her here and never see her again, we have to find a way to get together and continue forward.' So I said, 'I work at a surgery center that we started back in St. Paul. Why don't I just build the surgery center on the children's home and we can come back and forth and see [her]?'"