Operation Smile and Our Medical Mission

If you are unfamiliar with Operation Smile, it is a non-profit, internationally recognized childrens charity that mobilizes a world of generous hearts and medical teams to heal children's smiles and transform lives across the globe. We offer surgery free of charge for cleft lip and palates through volunteer International Medical Missions in developing countries.

We (Mima and Olivia) will be away from the 19th through the 31st of March with a team of 70 people, made up of doctors, nurses, speech therapists, medical record keepers and more. We will be participating as student volunteers on the mission.

The primary role of a student on a medical mission is to Educate. We will be meeting hundreds of families and children everyday at the hospital or in local schools and orphanages. We will have the opportunity to give people presentations about Dental Hygiene, Oral Re-hydration, Burn Care, and Nutrition. We will also be spending time with children and families before their surgeries and after. We also have the opportunity to sit in on surgeries.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Day 3 and 4 of Surgery

Hiya peeps!

So... We didnt write yesterday because we were exhausted and got back to the hotel too late. But anyway a summary of yesterday: Woke up early, ate breakfast, went to hospital... We played with the kids a lot. Another thing that is a big hit are "coloring walls". We put up paper on the walls or doors and the kids have fun decorating them with stickers and drawings... the hospital is very colorful now! Mima tried to go to the Operating Room to view a surgery but it was a cleft palate surgery and so it was impossible to see anything, so she left. Later we found out that a code happened soon after Mima had left the surgery. Code means that a kid stopped breathing. It was pretty hectic. During the time Mima was in the OR, Olivia played with families and was bombarded by people wanting to take her picture. Its funny how much we are asked to have our pictures taken. Everyone seems very excited to hear we are from America. They smile and say "OBAMA!!"
That was pretty much our day, later in the evening however we left to have dinner with a few team members and went to one of the nicest hotels in Aswan. Dinner was amazing!

So today we woke up and decided yet again that we were too tired to take a shower. At the hospital we played with some of the cutest kids we have seen, one baby with a cleft lip that was pretty wide could not stop smiling and kicking his chubby legs. To die for cuteness!! Anyway another one of our jobs is to help write in names and information on charts, take patients to the child life specialist from pre-op, and mix amoxiscillin (sp). Early in the day Olivia went down to the OR to watch the cute babys operation which was a unilateral cleft lip. Mima went down later and watched a similar operation. We both decided to stay down there for the remainder of the day and we got to see two operations each. It was really nice because the surgeons love to explain what they are doing and you are standing right next to them looking down at what they are doing. Very inspiring!! It was an opportunity we could not get anywhere else and we learned a lot! All of the operations today ended earlyish so we got to leave and go to the market, silver earrings and scarves :)
We are now going to a pool and pizza party with the team,

Love mima and olivia

Maa Salamah (goodbye)
Posted by at

1 comment:

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)