We arrived Sunday night, ready to start another interesting and educational 2 weeks in Liberia. Six of us came on the flight from Brussels; Jonathan Laryea arrived earlier after flying to Acra and then on to here.
The "dramatis personae" for this trip includes:
Dr. Jonathan Laryea, a native of Ghana, a graduate of the Waterbury Hospital Surgical residency. Professor of Surgery at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and annual September visitor to JFK with our team, co-founder of Support JFK Inc, and friend;
Dr. Chandra Joshi, anesthesiologist at UMass, and humanitarian who has come to Liberia with us several times;
Dr. Hilary Hutt, PGY-4 Anesthesia resident at UMass;
Dr. Thu Ha Nguyen, PGY-4 Surgery resident at the University of Arkansas;
Dr. Alex Sanowski-Bell, PGY-3 Surgery resident at Waterbury Hospital
Dr. Georgios Mihalopulos, PGY-2 Surgery resident at Waterbury Hospital
and of course me lol.
Monday we started out by bringing our 9 or 10 bags of supplies to the Operating Suite on the 4th floor. The entire suite has been renovated, and looks very good ! We then went to greet the Surgical faculty and residents, and see dear friends like Dr. Jerry Brown, Dr. Lawuobah Gbozee, Dr. Albertha Clark, and many others, as well as a surprise: Dr. Edet Ikpi has returned to JFK from Nigeria to continue the great work he did a couple of years ago as Chairman of Surgery!
After Grand Rounds Marie Knuckles took us on a tour of the new Radiology Suite complete with CT scanner. Having this technology at JFK is a major accomplishment many years in planning, and the new facility is beautiful. The best news was that they have a 5 year service contract on the scanner with Siemens.
Around noon we located our endoscopy equipment which had been shipped over in a container along with a whole lot of supplies collected by Santiago, Jonathan, and me. It was easily accessible in the hospital warehouse, and they delivered it to the Operating Suite very promptly. Much to my surprise and pleasure, we put the system together and it worked right away !! no damage in shipping, no problem with the electrics!
Later in the afternoon, Albertha Clark let us know that there are 150 patients on our list for surgery on this visit. It's highly unlikely that we would be able to do that many, so our goal now is to prioritize patients in terms of who really needs to have their surgery while we are here, and who could wait. Also, it is very likely that during our time here there will be a number of patients whose condition is such that they need urgent surgery, and they will obviously become a priority. We will do as much as we can for as many people as we can.
Last night Teresa and Alex Cummings invited us to their apartment for dinner. It was a lovely dinner in a lovely place, and the occasion was enjoyed by all!
Today (Tuesday) we had a good day doing 9 cases including thyroids, hernia and scopes. We were able to mix things around so that Jonathan did one thyroid with Thu Ha and one with Alex. I did several hernias with Georgios; Gbozee did a an umbilical hernia with Thu Na, and I did a hernia with Arthur, one of the Liberian residents. There was nothing spectacular about the day; it was s fairly typical day, and it was a good introduction to Liberian healthcare for the new kids.
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