"A Hurricane is coming tonight"! A Disco hit that is coming back to haunt me.

Day five was on auto pilot with the cases all going well and on time. We were able to start to add on plastic cases of the adults that needed scar and burn revisions that we added to our OR schedule. The hospital asks our team if we can fit in cases they are not able to take on. We are happy to accommodate them when our OR or a Doc”s schedule time is available.

Just as things ...

I was so tired last night I fell asleep when I got to the hotel. So this blog is late. lol

Day four was really very successful. We completed another 16 surgeries and we have two “walk in” patients. The mother heard about our mission in Columbia. She and her two children took a 6 hour bus ride to get to the hospital. The first child had a cleft lip and the second had a cleft lip and palate that needed repair. Both children had eaten earlier in the day so we had to wait until the ...

Day Three Tuesday, August 21, 2011 from Hospital Padre Carollo in Quito, Ecuador.

Day three started a little late due to the Monday morning city traffic. We did not get to the hospital until 9 am and this I thought was really going to throw us for a loop in the day’s schedule. We made up the time during the day when two cases turned out to be tonsillectomies and not cleft repairs. The tonsils needed to come out on the kids before any attempt of a repair could have been considered. ...

Day two started at 7:30 am and unfortunately one of our three PACU RNs became ill and was getting her own IV fluids and having to be confined to bed rest. So since there in not a float pool or back up coverage, we just had to deal with it. Lightening hit the hospital and it knocked out the air conditioning in the ORs.

With our three ORs running and the dental clinic cases we had everyone was doing double duty. I even donned a pair of scrubs and was circulating the ORs to get ...

Day One Sunday, August 21, 2011 from Hospital Padre Carollo in Quito, Ecuador.

Today was screening day and we had our whole team of 38 Docs, RNs and volunteers
hit the ground running. We were able to take the 3rd floor of the new addition to the hospital under our control and did we need it. We had 120 people show up for surgical procedures on our pre screening day. Through out the year our local Quito coordinator lets the people know our surgical and dental team is coming ...