Santa Cruz Surgical Mission January 2023

As our buses arrived at the hospital we passed by a line of people with their children in tow and I realized these would be the patients we were to meet today.  We were quickly sorted into teams to start our prep.  The OR nurses and anesthetists went one direction to see the prep, OR, and PACU areas, check their supplies and set up their rooms.  The surgeons and anesthesiologists went another direction to begin triaging patients in a set 6 exam rooms.  Patrick, the head administrator from Healing with Children and I set up near the surgeons and anesthesiologists to capture each of the patients and families as they finished the triage process.  They were sorted into priority 1, 2, and 3 based on their diagnosis and plan and the patients health and readiness for surgery.  Priority 3's would not be getting surgery this week.  1's and most of the 2's would be put on the schedule. I was surprised by how emotional I felt when the hospital doors were opened a...

 It was a very long tiring travel day yesterday, starting at 2:30am and ending at midnight at the hotel in Santa Cruz.  Application for a visa is required here and the application documents are significant.  I was glad that I prepared everything ahead of time, but it was still fairly slow to get through the line.   Today is a recovery day while the team trickles in.  I met 4 other team members in Panama City while waiting for the final flight into Santa Cruz.  3 nurses and 1 surgical resident.  The surgical resident works at the University of Washington, 2 of the nurses are from Boston, and the third nurse works in Portland, Oregon.  A geographically diverse team.  Most of them have ties with Emory, either as a past employee or resident or in one case, the daughter of the head surgeon, Dr. Roser. Our hotel is nice for Bolivian standards and has all of the basics.  The team members who have been on multiple trips recall that the slee...

Global Humanitarian Surgical Missions is something I have been interested in learning more about and was given an opportunity to do so with a surgical team, mostly from Emory Academic Medical Center, led by Dr. Steven Roser, an Oral Maxillofacial Surgeon.  I left today, on my way to Santa Cruz, Bolivia.   I've been talking to Dr. Roser about the possibility of volunteering.  I'm not a surgeon, anesthetist or  nurse.  These bare bones missions don't really need many people who don't provide those crucial skills.  I'm here to learn about the gaps and opportunities in the Surgical Ecosystem, all of the systems and processes around the surgery that are critical for ensuring it is successful.  I didn't come up with that term on my own.  It may be credited to multiple individuals, but my learning of that term came from Catherine R. deVries, MS, MD, FACS, FAAP.  Dr. deVries is a urologist by training, a global surgical expert over many yea...