All of us can imagine the pain and fear a parent feels when a child is born less than perfect, or when an accident or disease causes abnormalities and deformities. It requires only a bit more imagination to conceive of how the parents of such children must feel when a surgical procedure exists that could save their child, but that procedure is unavailable to them because even the leading pediatric surgeons in their countries lack the expertise to perform certain operations. This is the situation that exists today in many parts of the world. In the developing nations of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, poverty, political upheaval, and a host of priorities competing for few resources has precluded the advancement of pediatric surgery. In eastern European nations, such as Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania, decades of communist rule meant insularity from the West.
Pediatric surgery is a relatively new medical field.
In the United States, for example, before 1950, there were no pediatric surgeons. Its rolls of volunteer pediatric surgeons have swelled with physicians from throughout the United States and Canada, from private practices, hospital staffs and teaching positions. Each of CSAI's volunteer surgeons gives up a month of their vacation time to work without monetary compensation to teach their colleagues, in the developing nations of the world, modern and new surgical techniques. The foundation has the endorsement, support and cooperation of the American Pediatric Surgical Association, the International Society of Pediatric Neurosurgeons, the World Federation of Associations of Pediatric Surgeons, and the cooperation of the foremost children's hospitals in the United States, Canada and Europe. CSAI has also been approved for association with the United Nations as a Non-Governmental Organization with the Department of Public Information, and the United States Agency for International Development.