Mission

Interplast South is a not-for-profit charity that finances a medical mission trip each year to Honduras with the support of donors, the Ruth Paz Foundation, Smile Train and volunteer team members. Our focus is to repair cleft lip and palate deformities.

History

The Ruth Paz Foundation in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, has long been a resource and support for a team of plastic surgeons who have regularly made trips to San Pedro Sula to perform surgery on children in need of reconstructive surgery, primarily cleft lip and cleft palate surgery. The Foundation communicates with families of potential patients to announce the dates of Interplast South visits; provides local employees and volunteers to work with the medical team; makes local housing and meal arrangements. Since October 2011, the cleft surgeries have been performed in the new Ruth Paz Hospital for Burn Children and Pediatric Surgery.

The collaboration began in 1969 when Ruth Paz, the founder of the Foundation, worked with Dr. Donald Laub, a plastic surgeon at Stanford, and Dr. Luis Bueso in Honduras to arrange for teams to operate on children in San Pedro Sula. The early collaboration evolved into a relationship between Interplast, Inc. founded by Dr. Laub and Ruth Paz. The Ruth Paz Foundation was later recognized by the Honduras government in 1992.

In 1979, Interplast South, Inc. was formed as a separate, not-for-profit corporation. Interplast and Interplast South alternated making trips to San Pedro Sula for a number of years. In 2007 a transition began to move the administration of Interplast South, Inc. from Fort Lauderdale to Gainesville, Florida. That transition was completed in 2009.