Our Operation Kid Docs team just finished an amazing trip to Guatemala City and the Moore Center. The trip was preceded the week before by a Pediatric Orthopedic Symposium led by Dr. John Williams and Guatemalan Surgeon and OKD supporter Dr. Juan Carlos Navas. They spent two days educating future Guatemalan orthopedic surgeons on lower extremity fracture care, spine deformities, hip dysplasia, and neuromuscular conditions. This continues to be an important part of our mission to help educate the local providers, so that they can help care for these kids in their community and country.
The official OKD trip started Saturday, April 18. Our wonderful team of providers, nurses, techs, and volunteers all met in Houston. We had an incredible group of techs and nurses come from San Francisco, Denver, Los Angeles, Dallas, and even Virginia as well as our local team from Austin.
By Sunday we were at the Moore Center screening 76 pediatric patients with conditions from cerebral palsy to congenital upper and lower conditions (extra toes and fingers) to hand burns and contractions, hip dysplasia (where the hip has come out of the socket at a young age) to joined fingers (simple and complex) to clubfeet and growth discrepancies. While providers were screening patients, our volunteers, nurses, and techs were preparing the 3 operating rooms ready for our 4 days of surgery.
Our Anesthesia team was led by Dr. Stan Young along with Drs. Billy Corbett, Jack Parish, and Royce Hayes and anchored by our experienced and talented CRNA, Dan Ernst CRNA and pain management Mary Kay Lauden, RN. They worked alongside our skilled PACU team of nurses including Tanya Gomez RN, Matt Dufour RN, Jules Lindsay RN, Rebecca Crowe RN, Gerardo Tellez ANP, and Braulio Vazquez ANP, and local nurse Amie Jenkins RN. Together this team took care of these kids before and after surgery, ensuring a safe anesthetic and complete recovery!
Over the four days, our team provided 42 necessary and life changing surgeries!
Monday began our first day of operating and after fighting the downtown Guatemala City traffic, we were able to start. Dr. Michelle Mo (pediatric orthopedic surgeon from Boston Children’s Hospital) and Dr. Jay Shapiro (pediatric orthopedic surgeon in Austin) performed surgeries on extra toes as well as tendon transfers to correct foot deformity (allowing a more normal walking pattern). Drs. John and Jack Heydemann (son and father pediatric orthopedic surgeons) cared for patients with hip dysplasia and performed complex hip procedures. Dr. Hilton Gottschalk (pediatric hand surgeon in Austin) helped care for kids who had severe hand burn contractures as well as those kids with congenitally fused fingers.
Tuesday through Thursday, we continued with multiple surgeries. Highlights included complex foot and ankle reconstruction by Drs. Mo and Shapiro, Correction of bilateral leg deformities and contractures by Drs. Heydemann squared, and complex reconstruction and separation of bilateral multiple fused fingers from amniotic bands by Dr. Gottschalk. All these procedures were assisted by our circulating nurses Laura Dufour RN, Shea Scannell RN, and Steph Bosse RN alongside our dedicated scrub-techs: Alec Lewis CST, Ilyssa Silva CST, and Lauren Hall CST. As well as our Mission Trip Coordinator/Surgical First Assist, Echo Rowles CSFA,CST.
Thank you to all of them for their help!
To perform these complex procedures, we needed the right equipment, instruments, gowns, gloves, sutures, dressings, medications, etc. We are so thankful for the coordination and leadership from Echo Rowles, who also served as scrub tech, first assist, and all-around helper and organizer. In addition, Larry Shannon, RN played crucial roles in keeping track of our equipment, packing our bags, and providing much needed lunch relief to our hard-working nurses. Another important member of our team was Giselle Curiel CST, who oversaw sterilization of all our instruments as well as organizing our equipment. We could not perform the surgeries without her expertise and efficiency!
A big shout out to Dawson Hoang (our University of Texas, Alpha Epsilon Deltas student) who volunteered to be part of this mission. He was able to witness the entire process of screening patients, anesthesia induction, surgery, post anesthesia care, and then rounding on all of our patients that following morning. He helped with organizing our equipment and was ready to assist when needed with reuniting families and their kids after surgery. This week will forever shape his medical training as he starts his journey on becoming an MD this year in San Antonio. We are so thankful for the support that AED provides OKD and this amazing, transformational mission trip!
After a long week of surgeries, our time was up for this trip. We would be remiss if we didn’t thank the amazing staff at The Moore Center. They are celebrating 15 years since opening and their 188th mission trip. Over these 15 years, they have been able to reach so many families and kids throughout Guatemala, and no family is turned away! My last patient on the trip was a 5 year-old young lady with bilateral fused small and ring fingers from birth – causing deformity and affecting her ability to use her hands. In the United States, these would have been separated around age 1 year, but her mom stated that she was unable to afford the care in Guatemala, and as such had no options, until she heard of the Moore Center. Given her deformity and dysfunction, we were able to separate the fingers on both hands during a 4.5 hour procedure that required skin graft from her hip area. As I showed mom the photos of her new hands, tears flowed down her face. Via our interpreter, she thanked us profusely and through sobs stated that she never thought that her daughter would have straight fingers that could now move more normally. This is the impact that our team has, and this is but one patient of thousands who need help!Lastly, we are thankful for the dedication and hard work of Dr. John Williams and Megan Roberts, PA who helped guide us on this trip and provided us support leading up to this OKD Orthopedic Spring trip.