Building a Travel Team

Every year, we receive around 150 applications for Operation Walk Pittsburgh’s travel team. The application is accessible online and usually launches around 10 months prior to the mission. To spread the word that our application is live, we share the news on our social channels, but also through our hospital connections. On top of our efforts to spread the word, past travel team members are great at helping us get the word out to their networks and colleagues. The application typically stays open for three months. During this time, the team leaders meet to review all applications and make team selections for each area of the patient pathway. The application process is very competitive, so being chosen as a travel team member is a big deal. We notify all applicants of their status soon after the team leaders make their decisions.

Each year, two-thirds of the team is typically made up of returning volunteers, while one-third are new members. This isn’t always the case, but we try to keep the team composition a mix of experienced volunteers and new volunteers so that missions run as smoothly as possible. Volunteer positions include orthopaedic surgeons, anesthesiologists, internal medicine doctors, nurse anesthetists, orthopaedic physician assistants, physical therapists, circulating nurses, pre-op nurses, post operative care unit nurses, floor nurses, surgical technologists, translators, central sterile techs, humanitarian volunteers, and a photographer and videographer. Everyone on the team, usually around 70 people, contributes in meaningful ways to our patients’ care experience, helping in specialized ways to ensure the best outcomes.

We’re proud to recruit team members from across the United States and Canada, not just from Pittsburgh. Word of mouth helps! It’s not uncommon for team members to tell their co-workers about the experience they had during a trip. Subsequently, those co-workers will apply to join the following year’s team. Over the years, this has helped to create what we affectionately call our “little teams.” In addition to our Pittsburgh-based volunteers, which tend to be recruited from the UPMC system, we now have groups of volunteers that travel with us from Fargo, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Orlando, Charlotte, Connecticut, and even Winnipeg! These little teams spread the word in their own hometowns, which has made Operation Walk Pittsburgh travel teams truly multinational and diverse.

This year we have a diverse group of 74 people traveling with us. At our host hospital in Antigua, we will be running five operation rooms, an increase from our usual four rooms. This is in part thanks to a new OR team from Connecticut that will be joining us for their first trip! Things will look different at Obras this year. Over the winter, the hospital went through extensive renovations, which included increasing the total number of operating rooms from 4 to 8, adding new patient recovery wings, remodeling the pre-op and post-op units, and renovating staff lounges and locker rooms. We’re excited to be growing with Obras to help them meet increasing demand in orthopaedic patient care.

We are anticipating an amazing and rewarding trip as we scale up for the first time since the pandemic started, and we need your help to make it a success. This year, we will provide joint replacement surgery for 45 patients, up to 60 joints total, since some patients will receive bi-lateral surgery. We wouldn’t be able to complete our mission trips without the generosity of our donors. 100% of all donations to Operation Walk Pittsburgh will directly support patient care. Would you consider donating to help us restore the gift of mobility for this group of eagerly awaiting patients? Help us make Mission 2022 a success with a tax-deductible gift and, as always, thanks for your support!