Operation Walk is composed of twenty-one chapters across the US, Canada, Ireland and Thailand. Each team secures volunteers with the range of skills needed based on the Operation Walk model and raises its own funds. Operation Walk Los Angeles representatives have trained each team on how to perform a successful Operation Walk mission, ensuring that quality standards and patient care remain consistent across the network.
One of these chapters is the Women Orthopaedist Global Outreach or WOGO. This team has been coordinating with the Los Angeles Chapter for sixteen years, working together to provide mobility and consistent care to people in countries such as Nepal, Guatemala, Cuba, and most recently, Tanzania.
Both teams share information concerning partner hospitals, patients operated on, and those still in need of joint replacement. This tandem approach allows both groups to be informed on what equipment and which implants are required during each mission, as well as identifying which individuals are still waiting for surgery.
WOGO traveled to Tanzania this past February and helped to complete Rose’s journey of bilateral joint replacement as well as receive an update from Nelson, who had his right knee replaced in 2023. Both patients were treated by OpWalk LA in August of 2023.
Team Leader, Michelle Burdette RN, who also volunteers with our Los Angeles team, shared the good news.
“Rose was one of the patients operated on by Los Angeles in 2023. She returned to Arusha Lutheran Medical Centre in 2025 to have her left knee replaced by WOGO. Nelson also had a knee replacement in 2023. He walked almost 10 miles to come and show me how well he’s doing. He spoke to our current patients and told them to follow instructions after being discharged, how important exercising and walking is to recovery, and most of all how amazing life can be, pain-free.”
Thank you, Michelle, for sharing these stories and to WOGO for helping to continue the mission of changing lives through joint replacement surgery. Congratulations to your team for a successful and outstanding mission.