The Rotary Club Sebastopol Sunrise’s international efforts to provide educational and health services around the world were the focus of an article in the international magazine “Rotary.” The issue focused on activities and projects by Rotary clubs all around the world that have been doing remote, virtual and socially distanced projects.
The local Sunrise club has been supporting Global Offsite Care, a telemedicine nonprofit created by local physician Dr. James Gude. “We started by contacting clubs where Dr. Gude thought there might be an opportunity (to improve a hospital),” Sebastopol Rotarian Mikel Cook is quoted in the Rotary Magazine article titled “Remote Possibilities.”
Cook said the mission of the local Rotary club and Gude is “to sponsor local Rotary-sponsored telemedicine projects. We bring together Dr. Gude’s medical expertise with financing, stewardship, and advocacy among Rotarians.” Often the projects include the purchase and donation of medical equipment.
Gude started OffSite Care in 2007 while he was the primary medical officer at Palm Drive Hospital in Sebastopol. He also employed telemedicine and robots at the local hospital and at a network of northern California hospitals.
In July 2012, then-president Gail Thomas of the Rotary Club of Sebastopol Sunrise announced an initiative to spread telemedicine using the approach that Gude, a local telemedicine pioneer, has used successfully in Northern California. Cook, international chair for 2012-13, took on the challenge and has been joined by Rotarians from several other Rotary clubs to make telemedicine projects a success.
