A Year in the Making, Team Coordinators First to Arrive in the Dominican Republic

(A message from Roya Ghazinouri, Program Coordinator)

I arrived in the Dominican Republic along with our operating room coordinator, Paul Laemmle, on March 21st. We have spent the past few days unpacking our cargo, organizing transportation and logistics for our team. Our operating rooms are ready for surgery and our ward is cleared and ready to receive our patients. Our team of volunteers is flying out from Boston today and we will start preoperative clinic and surgeries tomorrow.

Our nurse in charge, Kerrie McDonough, gave a 2 hour lecture yesterday to 19 Dominican nurses. The topic: Basic Nursing Practice. The session was very well received and we hope to continue this education during our one to one patient care time with the local nurses and our patients.

As our team arrives in the DR today, I reflect back at all the work we did for the past year to prepare for this trip and realize every minute of it was worth it. The impact of our work is tremendous.