IVUmed

Summary

IVUmed (International Volunteers in Urology) is a Sandy, Utah 501(c)(3) that trains surgeons and nurses in low-resource countries rather than running episodic mission trips alone. Founded in 1995 by pediatric urologist Catherine R. deVries after pilot work in Honduras (from 1992) and Vietnam (from 1994), it operates under the motto "Teach One, Reach Many" (who we are, homepage).

This is not William C. DeVries, the University of Utah surgeon who implanted the Jarvik-7 artificial heart in 1982. Catherine deVries is a different physician; her ORCID is 0000-0002-9828-3488 with University of Utah affiliation.

Who It's For

Urologists, pediatric surgeons, nurses, and teaching hospitals in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America seeking sustained surgical training partnerships — and U.S. volunteers donating teaching time and travel.

What It Provides

Surgical teaching workshops (the organization reports 25–30 per year approaching its 30th anniversary), traveling resident scholarships, virtual visiting-professor lectures, and on-site capacity building (who we are). The homepage emphasizes medical and surgical education plus treatment for children and adults in low-resource settings (official site).

A peer-reviewed paper co-authored by deVries describes IVUmed's model as coordinating urological education in 30 LMICs over 20 years with a teach-the-teacher emphasis rather than one-off missions (Annals of Global Health, 2015).

IRS filings show a mid-six-figure operation — $242,867 revenue and $745,813 assets in FY2023 (IRS record).

How To Use It

• Website: https://www.ivumed.org/
• Address: 1914 East 9400 South, #448, Sandy, UT 84093; (512) 859-6509 (official site)
• Medical volunteer application and workshop calendar on the site

Open Questions

• deVries's current University of Utah appointment — ORCID lists Utah among affiliations but no primary faculty page was captured here.
• FY2024 990-EZ shows $0 revenue in the API extract (IRS record) — likely reporting lag or accounting-period artifact; the PDF was not pulled.
• Whether IVUmed still performs direct patient care missions in addition to training — the captured materials emphasize training; the peer-reviewed paper's "treatment" language is less detailed than the training claims.

Evidence

• Source: IVUmed Official Website · https://www.ivumed.org/
• Source: IVUmed — Who We Are Page · https://www.ivumed.org/who-we-are
• Source: IRS Form 990 Record — IVUmed · https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/582263983.json
• Source: Jalloh et al., "IVUmed: A Nonprofit Model for Surgical Training in Low-Resource Countries" (Annals of Global Health, 2015) · https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aogh.2015.03.001
• DeVries et al., "Clinical Use of the Total Artificial Heart" (NEJM, 1984) · https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM198402023100501 — disambiguation only: William C. DeVries, not Catherine deVries