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 On May 19-20, 2007 teams of medical professionals from Son La Provincial Hospital and Ba Vi Orthopedic Technical Rehabilitation Center (OTRC) gathered in Ha Tay to learn and practice the Ponseti Method, an early-intervention treatment for congenital clubfoot. The training seminar, sponsored by POF, was a first step in POF’s Clubfoot Treatment Initiative to help local medical institutions identify and correct clubfoot in infants, before the condition becomes a crippling disability.
The seminar was led by Dr. Thanh, a visiting expert from the Danang Orthopedic Center, who learned and mastered the technique at the University of Iowa where it was developed in the 1950s.
 The seminar included technical presentations by Dr. Thanh followed by patient evaluations and casting practice for the attending doctors and nurses, an essential element to learning this delicate technique.
This clubfoot treatment seminar goes hand in hand with recent POF-sponsored Clubfoot Identification Seminars, training rural nurses to identify the condition in newborn babies.
As more medical professionals in the region are trained in early clubfoot detection and treatment, POF has begun to see an increase in the number of clubfoot cases being referred and treated in local facilities. Every successful intervention saves a child and his/her family from the pain of a lifelong disability.
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