Dr. Laurence Brenner and the India Project

Helping Patients Around the World

laurence brenner

As doctors, we receive an incredible amount of happiness by using our craft to help people; it’s what is most important in this life.

Lakeland Regional Health’s own Dr. Laurence Brenner, board-certified and fellowship-trained in hand surgery, uses his passion and skill to help patients’ unique concerns. Not only does he provide exceptional care right in the heart of Lakeland, but his care reaches across borders.

This upcoming January 2023, Dr. Brenner will join multiple doctors from around the country and return to India to provide life-changing care to patients who may not otherwise receive. This is Dr. Brenner’s third year making this incredible trip. “We were given the opportunity to develop careers and good lives through our practice. We have benefitted from the training; since we can’t give someone our abilities-let’s use it for people who don’t have access to it,” says Dr. Brenner.

The India Project, Inc. was created by Padmashree Dr. Sharad Kumar Dicksheet, an eight-time Nobel Peace Prize nominated plastic surgeon from New York City. Throughout his lifetime, Dr. Dicksheet performed over 100,000 eye surgeries and dermatologic procedures and nearly 100,000 cleft lip and cleft palate surgeries for children in India. Dr. Dicksheet continued surgeries even after experiencing life-altering challenges and kept a tireless schedule until his passing in 2011. His legacy lives on through the providers and the critical social initiatives through The India Project.

Dr. Brenner will be visiting the cities of Nagpur, Pune, New Delhi, and Jodhpur in India to provide hundreds of kids and adults with different no-cost plastic surgery procedures. His patients, who otherwise have no access to health care, will line the street outside of the clinic for screenings to determine their eligibility for surgery. The communities use newspapers, flyers, and word of mouth to encourage patients to seek this care. Depending on the surgery, each doctor can perform up to ten procedures a day-helping an incredible number of patients during their time overseas.

The communities he and his fellow providers work within, have assistance from local facilities and personnel to create an efficient and well-equipped patient experience. The local clinics will donate anesthesia, pre-op and post-op nurses and residents, operating rooms, and more. Organizations like MAP International. This organization provides medicine and health supplies to those in need around the world regardless of religion, gender, race, nationality, or ethnic background. MAP provided Dr. Brenner, through Ethicon, 30 boxes of sutures and skin glue.

The procedures that Dr. Brenner will perform on patients of all ages during his 12-day trip include:

  • Cleft lips
  • Scars
  • Skin and other cancers
  • Deformities
  • Hand surgery
  • Syndactyly (fused or webbed fingers)
  • Ptosis (drooping eyelids)
  • Burn scars
  • Anything plastic surgery related

Dr. Brenner’s time serving the communities of India is nothing short of life changing. “We keep in touch with the local doctors after we return home. It’s amazing how you develop close relationships with them. While we are there, they bend over backwards to help us and even send us letters and pictures about how patients are doing. It’s truly an amazing community.”

Thank you to Dr. Brenner and all the doctors who give their talent and skills to serve deserving patients from around the world. To learn more about Dr. Brenner and his specialties and reconstructive surgery expertise click here.

To learn more about the India Project’s mission, please visit https://www.indiaprojectinc.org/.

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