Physician Assistant from Arizona to Provide Burn Care Training and Care in Central America

NORFOLK, VA (03/17/2011)(readMedia)-- This month, a physician assistant from Scottsdale, Ariz., will provide training, education and clinical care at children's hospital burn unit in Costa Rica. A three-person team of volunteer healthcare professionals, including Nicole Coyne, PA-C, the lead physician assistant at the Arizona Burn Center in Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix, Ariz., will work in San José from March 19 to March 24 on behalf of Physicians for Peace, an international nonprofit based in Norfolk, Va. Coyne also is a guest lecturer at Midwestern University in Glendale, Ariz.

Working with in-country partners, Physicians for Peace volunteers seek to advance the skill set of burn care professionals so that they can provide sustainable care to burn survivors. Physicians for Peace founded its Burn Care program in response to the challenges of burn care in under-served regions: burns are among the most common pediatric injuries in developing countries, according to the World Health Organization. Within Central America and the Caribbean, 70 percent of burn victims are children. By training nurses, therapists, surgeons and psychologists, the Burn Program supports clinics in their efforts to provide holistic burn care.

This is Coyne's second mission to Costa Rica for Physicians for Peace. The mission is partially funded by a grant from the BAMA Works Fund of the Dave Matthews Band in Charlottesville, Va. That grant also supported a Physicians for Peace Burn Care mission to Honduras in February.

For more about Physicians for Peace, visit www.physiciansforpeace.org.

ABOUT PHYSICIANS FOR PEACE

Physicians for Peace is an international non-profit organization that mobilizes volunteer healthcare professionals to assist developing nations with unmet medical needs and scarce resources. Through effective, hands-on medical education and training, clinical care and donated medical supplies, Physicians for Peace develops long-term, sustainable, replicable, and evidence-based programs to help partner nations build medical capability and capacity to help themselves. Since 1989 Volunteers for the 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization have conducted medical missions in more than 60 countries. With its headquarters in Norfolk, Va., Physicians for Peace has programs in 22 countries and offices in Manila, the Philippines and Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic.

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