This is Your Home
Last month, Dr. Richard Moser, president of the Neurosurgery and Neurology Institute (NNI) of Solidarity Bridge, was invited to La Paz, Bolivia, to co-teach a course in Endoscopic Skull Base Surgery. Dr. Martin Aliaga, president of the Bolivian Society of Neurosurgery, welcomed us to the Caja Nacional de Salud hospital, proclaiming: “Esta es su casa!” (this is your home).
Amid the dramatic landscape of La Paz (the city sits more than 12,000’ above sea level), we do indeed feel at home. Adding to this feeling was the presence of our friends and partners. Dr. Moser was joined by Bolivian otorhinolaryngologist Dr. Sergio Rojas, and by Dr. Pedro Paulo Mariani, director of the Center for Excellence of the Pituitary of Moriah Hospital in Sao Paulo, Brazil. This is the third time these doctors have joined efforts to provide this training course in Bolivia.
In this 2023 Skull Base Endoscopy course, doctors discussed highly complex cases and refined approaches to minimally-invasive brain surgery. In addition to the technical aspects of surgery, they discussed the many other considerations that are essential when forming treatment plans with patients and their families—concerns ranging from potential risks and side effects, to the scarcity and high cost of medications. Accompanying patients through this heavy decision-making process is a critical step in providing complex surgery.
A decade ago, there was very little access to endoscopic pituitary surgery in Bolivia, regardless of a patient’s economic status. But today, local neurosurgeons tell us that access to these procedures has grown and expanded across the country, thanks in part to Solidarity Bridge’s continued mentorship and equipment donations. In La Paz, endoscopic pituitary surgery is available to patients across the economic spectrum. Two public hospitals, the Caja Nacional and Hospital de Clinicas, provide the vast majority of these surgeries in the region.
These two hospitals are also critical training centers for the national surgical workforce, training nearly 50% of Bolivia’s neurosurgical residents. This training is key to the future of neurosurgery in Bolivia, and we are pleased to partner with them on this high-demand course. The course is part of our long-term engagement with the Bolivian Society of Neurosurgery to advance training for neurosurgeons and residents in the public system. We began working together over 10 years ago, and the impact of this relationship was evident during this trip. Our hearts were warmed to see residents in training whom we had met as students, and surgeons who first participated in our programs as residents. The surgical workforce is growing, and with it, access to safe, affordable and timely neurosurgical and neurologic care is expanding every day.