Plastic surgery extravaganza

Plastic surgery extravaganza, originally uploaded by mattcotham.

This past week we had a marathon plastic surgery clinic. Generally once

or twice a year a visiting Serbian plastic surgeon flies out to see us.

To prepare, we send out letters about 1-2 months in advance asking

people to come to the hospital to see him; we generally get about 60-70%

of people to actually come. These people start coming to the hospital

on Wednesday, where they get admitted, and the surgeon flies in on

Thursday, operates Thursday and Friday, and then leaves on Saturday. We

generally finish operating at around 8-9pm on Thursday and Friday, so

it's a long day for the staff.

This kid, Goodson, was scheduled to have a bilateral cleft lip and

palate repair; he got there on Thursday and was scheduled for surgery on

Friday but started running a fever and having bloody diarrhea. We had

to cancel his surgery on Friday because he was too sick to go under

anesthesia, and we prayed for him at prayer meeting in the morning (we

have daily prayers at 10:15 every day). Sure enough, the next day his

fever was gone, his diarrhea had gotten better, and we squeezed in his

surgery before the surgeon had to go. This is how he looked today!

Next week we do the same thing with a visiting orthopedic surgeon. This

is pretty much the only way to get surgical sub-specialty care out here,

and we still feel the need for urology and ENT follow-up for patients

that right now have nowhere to go.

Speaking of surgeons, our current surgeon is scheduled to leave in

January of next year and no replacement has been found; if you know

someone who might be willing to come, let us know!