RealSelf, the leading online community for consumers and doctors to share information about cosmetic treatments, has announced a new fellowship program to support the efforts of health care providers who donate their time and expertise to deliver medical care and training in highly underserved communities around the world.

The fellowship is open to physicians as well as surgical care teams who are willing to volunteer their medical services or serve as volunteer educators to advance the skills of local doctors and staff in a range of medical needs. Primary needs include:

  • burn reconstruction
  • microsurgery and advanced cleft techniques
  • hand surgery
  • orthodontics
  • anesthesia
  • nursing
  • physical and hand therapy

Fellows are awarded $7,500 to be applied toward travel expenses and supplies used in a medical training trip. The recognition that comes with being awarded a RealSelf Fellowship also amplifies exposure to a practitioner’s brand and increases awareness of the practitioner’s chosen cause.

One of the program’s primary goals is to encourage humanitarian acts by the existing RealSelf doctor community. This program will also help identify the doctors and other healthcare professionals who are already engaged in giving back.

“Giving is at the heart of the RealSelf culture. Our team is entirely bought into finding ways to use our scale for good. The RealSelf Fellowship is designed to motivate, remind, and promote humanitarianism by our large physician community,” says Tom Seery, RealSelf Founder and CEO. “Our ambition is to see the fellowship program lead to sustained, broad-based activities across numerous places of need.”

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Worldwide, more than five billion people lack the ability to get the basic surgical care they need, leaving them living with reparable birth defects, burns, or other injuries. To date, RealSelf has spent more than $150,000 sponsoring physicians’ humanitarian efforts abroad to address these needs.

“We developed this program based on our learnings from sponsoring medical trips to remote cities in Vietnam and India. There is a vast gap in access to surgical care in these communities and a chronic shortage of physicians trained in reconstructive surgery. Children with clefts and adults with cooking-related burns can return to lives where stigma won’t hold them back from reaching their goals,” Seery continues.

Medical professionals interested in participating can view eligibility requirements and complete the online application at realself.com/giving/fellowship.