Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Operation Walk Boston 2014: Day 5

In the blink of an eye, our 5 days in the operating rooms here in Santo Domingo have come to an end.  We finished up our final cases today for a total of 54 completed joint replacements over the course of this past week.

Anesthesia resident Tanya prepares a patient for spinal anesthetic while attendings Dr. Lazea and Zeballos supervise.

Dr. Thornhill, Dr. Burke, and Lauren at work on a total knee replacement.

As we walked back from the ORs and returned to the wards, we were greeted by scenes such as this one:

Paul and Sarah take a quick break in the coffee room in between cases.

The nursing staff and Physical Therapy team on the wards.

Dr. Ready and Emily take a stroll with a patient.

It certainly goes without saying that a surgical mission of this magnitude would not be possible without meticulous organization of equipment and supplies, sterilization of instruments in between cases, and distribution of medications (including the pericapsular injections given to our patients intraoperatively that have done a phenomenal job of controlling postoperative pain while also allowing for patients to walk on the same day of or after surgery).  Below are some photographs of the people who make all these things possible behind the scenes.
"Secret agent" Ashley, hard at work in the pharmacy/cargo room.


Gloria, Debbie, and Steve at mission control, readying the supplies in the cargo room.

Kesner, Steve, Anne, Franklin, and Ruddy hold down the fort.
Our pharmacist, Anne, with Ashley and Ruddy.

Drs. O'Neill, Gargarian, Concepcion, Zeballos, and Judy and Debbie get organized.

Following our final cases today, we sat down as a team to review the pre- and postoperative x-rays from each of the 54 joint replacements that were performed over the course of the week.  Led by Dr. Thornhill, each and every x-ray was closely studied and critiqued, and in addition to being a great learning experience it was truly remarkable to take in all that had been accomplished over the course of the past several days.  






The day concluded with dinner and dancing for all of the Dominican and American volunteers who participated in Operation Walk (photographs forthcoming tomorrow).  In the morning, it's back to the hospital for our final day of rounds followed by presentations by the Orthopaedic residents to the Dominican medical students on various topics regarding joint replacement.

Until tomorrow,
Lauren

No comments: