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 in Aug and they are ready and waiting when we get there at 7am. Some came as far a Columbia to be seen by our team.

The procedure screening process consisted of the local hospital initiating the patient chart and took the basic patient information and then it was passed on to our intake room where I was positioned. At this location we had two RNs and a volunteer and me. At our location we checked the patient chart, took vitals, all pre op photos. Once completed at our station I directed the surgical candidate to the next stop which was one of the 4 surgical review rooms for a consult with a surgeon. We are also running a dental clinic on this mission for extractions and other dental procedures. After the surgical/dental consults the patients were sent to the 4 anesthesia review rooms for their pre op anesthesia consults. The last stop on the patients world wind pre screening day tour was back to our intake station for their final go or postponement decision on this trip. All scheduled surgeries are listed after everyone has been seen so the parents and patients had to wait until the end of the day for their surgery day and time to be posted in the hospital lobby.

I kept the patient flow going as best I could. At the busiest time of the day, I had every surgical and anesthesia consult room holding 15 deep outside the door. The parents and little patients could not have been more understanding and could not have thanked us enough for all the organized craziness and perseverance that was going on all day around them. They all had kindness and hope in their eyes.

While all this was going on upstairs the rest of the mission team was creating (3) ORs and a PACU unit. Since all our equipment is brought in for each missions with us, there was a lot of unloading, unpacking, equipment testing and stocking the ORs for the surgical procedures starting at 7am on Monday morning.

All in all, it was a great day and everything we wanted was accomplished and ready for the new day tomorrow

email me your questions @ abonazzo@gannetthg.com Thanks Tony