Haig Physical Medicine PLC

11/29/2025

Please support the International Rehabilitation Forum!

Dear friends and colleagues,

This giving season please support my team at International Rehabilitation Forum (IRF). At a time when our government has pulled back from global aid, this organization I founded is called on to do more - and we’re succeeding! But we need your help.

Before the IRF, sub-Saharan Africa had no rehabilitation doctors for problems ranging from spinal cord paralysis to war amputation to kids with disability to athletic injuries. This year in Morocco we helped lead the first ever World Congress for Rehabilitation Medicine on the African continent. While I was in South Africa our graduates formed the first national Rehabilitation Medicine society in sub-Saharan Africa. Our trainees now lead Ghana’s Olympic sports medicine program and leprosy hospital, Ethiopia’s national amputee hospital, Cameroon’s national strategy and more.

This little Vermont not-for-profit has become a formal advisor to the World Health Organization and the International Society for Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine. We mentor dozens of Americans who want to build a career helping overseas, and support leaders in other countries from Nepal to Ukraine. We’re a 501-c-3 charity, 100% volunteers and 100% of the money we receive goes to our efforts.

America has reached out to help others over 200 years. As our government steps away from this priority, the citizens need to pick up the challenge. You can sustain our global mission through a non-government team you know personally. Please write a check, send a Paypal or talk to me about how you can help in the next year.

Thank you and happy holidays,

Andy

Andrew J. Haig, MD
President, the International Rehabilitation Forum
Professor Emeritus, the University of Michigan

The International Rehabilitation Forum
c/o Haig Physical Medicine PLC
1590 S. US Hwy 7, suite 1
Middlebury, VT. 05753

www.rehabforum.org

10/30/2025

Yesterday the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine honored the success of the International Rehabilitation Forum's 50+ American volunteers and 40+ African leaders who are changing the face of rehabilitation in Africa. www.rehabforum.org Great work team!!

03/12/2025

You did it! Congratulations to the 2025 graduates of the International Rehabilitation Forum's Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation fellowship. You are the pioneers in South Africa, Ghana, and Ethiopia. Thank you to almost 100 volunteer faculty members.

11/09/2024

Announcing the IRF’s campaign to fund Kumasi Rehab

Today, at the AAPMR, the largest rehabilitation medicine conference in history, the International Rehabilitation Forum announced our plan to raise $1.9 M to build Kumasi Rehab, our first rehabilitation medicine training center and a sustainable, replicable model for the rest of Africa.

In the last few years the IRF has risen from a small group of volunteers to a global leader in building medical rehabilitation for persons with disabilities; ranging from spinal cord injury to amputation to childhood disorders to stroke; in low and middle income countries. With 20 graduates in 4 African countries our new specialists need a home base for research and training. Lead by Dr. Abena Tannor we hope to build this platform in Kumasi, Ghana.

Days after the American election it is clear that individual efforts to improve society are what matters going forward. By organizing friends, family and colleagues to fundraise for a project run by folks you know personally, you can make a huge difference.

Please link to my message and please personally ask folks to donate.

09/08/2024

Just survived the Kelly Brush Ride! 100 miles sucking wind as best I could behind some monster women from the Middlebury Nordic Ski Team (thanks, ladies!) and a few others. The Kelly Brush Foundation raises millions of dollars for adaptive equipment so the other folks on this ride can hand-cycle, mono-ski, mountain climb, and do all kinds of cool stuff.

Oh, yeah, it was a beautiful Vermont day!

02/29/2024

Great article from Shirley Ryan Abilities Lab's "PM&R On Point" on the story of the International Rehabilitation Forum. second article on this link: https://www.sralab.org/pmr-point .Thanks to Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research, Shirley Ryan AbilityLab for the training and the attention to global needs!

PMR on Point taps the brainpower of our clinicians, scientists and alumni to highlight Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation from every angle.

02/29/2024

Congratulations to www.rehabforum.org the International Rehabilitation Forum's 2024 graduates, KK and Leslie, who fought through 2 years of training under the guidance of Abena Tannor in Ghana and our two fellowship directors, Hannah Steere and Yunna Sinsky in the US!

Thanks, too, to the guy in the upper left corner, Dr. Timothy Johnson, our keynote speaker. Tim's the world leader in building obstetric and gynecology care for low-resource countries and its his wisdom and encouragement that got the IRF going back in the day.

I'm so proud of all of you Fellows, Faculty and Supporters!

11/24/2023

Dear friends,

This giving season, please donate to the International Rehabilitation Forum (IRF).

Click on www.rehabforum.org or simply mail a check to the IRF at Haig Physical Medicine’s office, 1590 S. US Highway 7, Middlebury, VT. 05753.

Why?

The world needs the IRF
• A billion people in the world have significant disabilities caused by war, disaster, accidents and diseases.
• Dr. Haig’s medical specialty of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation saves lives, livelihoods, independence and quality of life for people with problems like spinal cord injury, stroke, childhood disability, amputation or pain.
• Less than 1% of people with disability in low-income countries ever see a Rehab doctor.

The IRF has already made a difference
• Almost every Rehab doctor in sub-Saharan Africa has been trained from our office in Middlebury.
• When there’s an earthquake, flood or other disaster, strategies the IRF designed are used in the rehabilitation medicine response.
• Within the first month of the COVID pandemic we provided global guidance on hospital rehabilitation and what became known as long-COVID
• Our award-winning documentaries done from a wheelchair have changed the way countries understand ability and disability.
• Young American leaders in global rehabilitation are working with the IRF to help launch their careers.

The world is beginning to notice
In the last 2 years:
• We received the top international ‘Haim Ring’ award and the American Academy’s Distinguished Advocate award for this work.
• Tom Haig’s book, Global Nomad, about his international travel as a cliff-diver then as a spinal cord advocate with the IRF, was published in multiple languages.
• The World Health Organization invited us to help lead its World Rehabilitation Alliance
• The International Society for Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine asked us to lead their efforts in expanding rehabilitation to low-resource countries.

We’ve got a plan
A $4 million, 4-year campaign to:
• Build Africa’s first rehabilitation medicine training hospital in Ghana
• Fund the U.S. National Center for Global Rehabilitation Research
• Catalyze Rehabilitation Medicine training in 20 more African countries that have zero rehab doctors.

You are the key to our success!
As our patients you’re the best voice for our campaign in Vermont. So talk it up to friends, families, colleagues, religious organizations, schools and clubs. Dr. Haig will be glad to talk to these groups, too.
You can support us with a donation! Any amount goes a long way in Africa! And any donation encourages others to help.

Thank you for helping us help the world.

Happy Holidays!

Andy, Pattie, and Abbie

International Rehabilitation Forum (IRF) develops rehab medicine in Sub-Saharan Africa and other rural, low-resource regions.

12/08/2022

WHO Global Report on Health Equity for Persons with Disability: My call for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation training in Vermont and New England.

The rehabilitation medicine specialty is almost nonexistent in Vermont. UVM has four specialists, down from six. Dartmouth has one, the same token number it’s had for decades. There are a handful of us in private practice.

11/27/2022

This year the International Rehabilitation Forum had a stellar year! But 2023 requires us to raise some serious cash. Time for you all to pony up, friends! Even better, tap on YOUR friends to raise funds for our work.

In 2022
--We've got 6 fellows in our 2 year rehab training program, in Ghana, Ethiopia, and Cameroon.
--The WHO's World Rehabilitation Alliance has called on us to be an official member
--The American Academy of PM&R honored our leadership with its Distinguished Advocate Award.

In 2023:
--We'll launch the careers of our next 3 graduates
--We'll be adding 15 new trainee doctors including South Africa, Ghana, Ethiopia.
--We'll be convening our friends around the ISPRM meeting in Colombia--
--We'll be mentoring and supporting young Americans who hope to build careers in global rehab.

But, to put it bluntly, WE GOT NO CASH! help us out, please! www(dot) rehabforum (dot) org or scan the screen to donate.

Thanks, and Happiest Holidays Ever!

Andy Haig
President, the International Rehabilitation Forum