On April 18th I'll be flying off to Ghana for my 18th mission with Operation Smile. The team is big due to an unusually large number of observers and trainees. There are 92 members, mainly comprised of Ghanaians with with five from Sweden and two to three each from Israel, Egypt, Kenya, Spain, Belgium, Brazil, South Africa and China. The chief cleft surgeon and Team Leader is from Ghana. There are six surgical residents and three anesthesia residents on the team. They will be observing and assisting in the same capacity they would in the OR in their home countries. There are also four CRNA's (certified registered nurse anesthetist) observers from Ghana on the team, an orthodontist/dentist observer, and four nurse observers. There are also eight trainees in areas such as medical records, Patient Imaging and Biomedical Technician, (keeps all the medical equipment running and "Macgyvers" - what is needed in less well-wired countries. There is an extra surgeon, anesthesiologist, Biomed and Patient Imager to provide education. Patient Imaging or photography, is actually very complex. Each child has "before" photos, intra-operative photos that are very precise and may be used to guide subsequent surgeries. Immediate and two week post-op photos are also taken. All of the photos are archived for use in the education of local cleft surgeons.
There are five students who have been active in developing Op Smile student support clubs at their schools and have thus qualified to join a mission. They have a student sponsor who travels with them. They each try to find a patient close to their age and follow him or her through the surgical process. They also do a project like helping out at an orphanage while they are in the country. Finally, there are eight guests and their Op Smile sponsor. I think the guests on this mission are from Sweden and likely are sponsors for this trip. Sometimes the guests are well-known celebrities in their countries and do filming for money-raising back home. So, subtracting out all the "extras,"the number of team members involved in the actual patient care comes to 41 plus the residents (10) - 51 - as they both learn and help.
I'll be doing photos a little differently this time - I hope better. It's on OneDrive and I'll email the link. It only has one public domain photo from Wikipedia right now.
More later
There are five students who have been active in developing Op Smile student support clubs at their schools and have thus qualified to join a mission. They have a student sponsor who travels with them. They each try to find a patient close to their age and follow him or her through the surgical process. They also do a project like helping out at an orphanage while they are in the country. Finally, there are eight guests and their Op Smile sponsor. I think the guests on this mission are from Sweden and likely are sponsors for this trip. Sometimes the guests are well-known celebrities in their countries and do filming for money-raising back home. So, subtracting out all the "extras,"the number of team members involved in the actual patient care comes to 41 plus the residents (10) - 51 - as they both learn and help.
I'll be doing photos a little differently this time - I hope better. It's on OneDrive and I'll email the link. It only has one public domain photo from Wikipedia right now.
More later
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