It’s pitch black outside and the cabin lights have been dimmed. South Africa Airlines kindly provided each of us with a cozy bright red blanket, black knee socks, a pillow with one of those faux cloth covers and a “sleep mask.” The captain came on the air shortly after takeoff to tell us we would quickly be flying into the night and that after dinner was served we should wrap up in our blankets and go to sleep. We would wake up, he assured us, in an ever softer and more soothing voice, with the sun in 14+ hours over Johannesburg. Many of my fellow travelers are indeed dreaming away like so many nascent butterflies in their red cocoons, but since it’s three o’clock in the afternoon in my brain, I decided to use the time writing a bit of blog. Since I’m considered a Team Leader on this mission, (sometimes the pediatrician is included in the leaders and sometimes not,) I received the “Op Smile Fact Sheet and Talking Points” in case the media approaches me. I thought I’d pass on a few of these as people do frequently ask me these questions about the organization.
Operation Smile is headquartered in Virginia Beach, VA and was started in 1982 by plastic surgeon Bill Magee, Jr and his wife Kathleen, a nurse and clinical social worker. They had gone on a trip to the Philippines to do a volunteer week of cleft lip and palate surgery and came home feeling overwhelmed by the unmet need they saw. Op Smile is now the largest volunteer-based medical charity providing free cleft surgeries and is leading research into the causes, prevention, treatment and surgical outcome. Over 5400 volunteers from 80 countries volunteer and there are over 900 registered student clubs worldwide. Globally, 1/700 children is born with a cleft lip and/or palate.
Training local surgeons, anesthesiologists, pediatricians and nurses has always been a high priority for operation smile. Currently, surgeries performed on local missions in-country by local volunteers trained by Operation Smile account for 67% of all the procedures performed by Operation Smile. The remaining 33% of the procedures are performed on missions such as the one I’m on to Madagascar where volunteers from multiple countries, including the host country, come together for 10-14 days. On this mission, there are volunteers from Sweden, Egypt, South Africa, Italy, Canada, Malawi, DRC, the UK, the US, and of course, Madagascar. There are six surgical residents and 10 physician observers from Madagascar on the team as well.
Due to the training programs in place over the years, there are now cleft centers providing complete year round care for patients in India, Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. Finally, Op Smile partners with the American Heart Association, and on each mission provides courses in Basic and Advanced cardiac life support and Pediatric Advanced Life Support to nurses and physicians.
OK. Enough about Op Smile for now. Since there’s a large Swedish contingent on this team, I’ve been listening to some Swedish lessons that I downloaded to my iPhone a couple of years ago. It’s always fun to be able to start a conversation in another language. Of course then you have to be willing to look silly when you can’t understand the response…
More later from Madagascar.
No comments:
Post a Comment