Wednesday September 13

    Another superbly crazy busy day in which did 11 cases including 3 endoscopies, 4 inguinal hernias, an incisional hernia, a thyroidectomy, removal of an oral cyst in a 5 month old, and something else which I can't remember right now. Tomorrow looks equally busy as we try to fit in surgery for as many people as possible, but particularly those needing pathological examination of tissue.
     When I asked Dr.Konneh why so many people were coming to JFK wanting us to fix their hernias, he explained that many people want the American doctors to do their surgery. One of our goals is to help in the effort to improve Liberian surgery so that won't be an issue anymore; on this trip we have seen further evidence of progress in that direction, but we were still inundated with requests.In the past couple of days, I have had to tell people that we will have to schedule their surgery for when we return in March, as there is just not enough time to do it on this trip. Since many of these people have had their hernia, or goiter, or whatever, for many years, waiting 6 months for surgery may be inconvenient and disappointing, but it's not bad medicine.
     I wrote in an earlier blog about Varney, a 4 year old boy who swallowed lye and developed an esophageal stricture. Today Jonathan scoped him again, and dilated the stricture again, and was able to pass the endoscope thru the stricture into the stomach. Jonathan told us that this afternoon he went to see Varney who was happily drinking fruit juice thru a straw; this is a boy who prior to being dilated, had not been able to swallow food or drink for many months. Being able to do this for Varney has far reaching effects not just for his life, but for others in his situation, for the Liberian doctors who are being taught endoscopy, and for JFK Hospital as an institution. I hope and think it will turn out to be an important step for Liberia on the road to recovery. Having the ability to do endoscopy will pay huge dividends in patient care, and we have it at JFK because of the work of my colleagues Dr.Santiago Arruffat and Dr.Jonathan Laryea; I am very proud to be associated with both of them !