Chongqing, China Surgical Volunteer Trip

Makes Me Want To Operate All Day

We really can't thank our local volunteers and the China Population Welfare Foundation enough.  Not only do they do everything that we need, but they anticipate what we might find useful, and make it happen.  We have had zero no-shows this trip.  None.  On many of our surgical volunteer team trips, some children that are scheduled for a given time don't show up for whatever reason. Here, the CPWF recruited patients and local volunteer translators, paid to have the patients come in from near and far, housed them, fed them and arranged all of their other needs.  There are always cultural barriers when we work in places like China, but the CPWF makes everything as smooth as possible.  By partnering together with local NGOs, Interplast can magnify our impact and effectiveness.  Although Richard is only thanking Echo in this clip, the entire team feels very grateful to the rest of the translators and the China Population Welfare Foundation for helping us so much.

Makes Me Want To Operate All Day

 

Thank You Note

Another child wrote this letter to us, which Echo was nice enough to translate for me.  For those of you who are unable to access the videos, it thanks the doctors for coming to help the children.  The author says that even though she is about to go into surgery this afternoon, she can already feel our care.  She recognizes that we are tired, and she thanks us for bringing smiles to all the kids.

This is the kinda thing that just warms my heart.  No one asked her to write this.  We gave her paper and crayons to dull the boredom of waiting, because we felt bad that she had to wait all day for surgery.  She could've written or drawn anything she wanted.  The fact that she chose to use her paper to thank us really means the world to us. 

One ugly fact of Interplast life is that even though we are helping change these kids' lives, surgery and recovery is usually scary, uncomfortable and weird for the kids. Many children cry in the post-operative care unit due to their hunger from not eating all day (so there won't be complications under anesthesia) and their recently completed facial reconstruction surgery.  We know in our hearts that the children will be grateful later on in life, but anyone who's ever been in a pediatrician's office knows crying and screaming are the norm with pediatric surgery.  We tell ourselves that the kids are grateful, but we don't often hear it from them (the parents, however, always show their deep gratitude).  So to hear the children themselves thank us is really meaningful.  Even though we change the lives of eight to twelve patients per day, hearing just one little thank you takes our breath away.

Thank You Note

 

Richard Finds A Kindred Soul

The attention that was lavished on Hao, our little scribe, caused our wall o' art to proliferate.  Most of it was coloring, but one was this piece of writing (see the video below).

This was especially great because Richard Siegel, one of the plastic surgeons, is always talking about running, diet, health, etc.  He has had a hard time with the salt-heavy Chinese diet, and talks to all of us about fiber, vegetables, and the benefits of preventative medicine.  He runs every day, and is thinking of writing a book about fiber, fitness and freedom from fear of the scale.  So when he saw a fourteen-year-old girl take a blank piece of paper and write about running, fitness, and vegetables, he just lost it. 

Richard Finds A Kindred Soul

 

Anesthesiologists

David Fitzgerald is shown here talking with the hospital's head of anesthesia and another anesthesiologist with the help of Guayam Ma, one of our volunteer translators.  I think that these informal Q+A sessions are the best way to exchange information.  Everyone is asking questions, clarifying and seeing how different people do things.  While we help children by providing direct surgery, we do more good in the long run by helping build the knowledge of the local physicians.  They are the teachers of the next generation of doctors, and by teaching the teachers, we help the children of China for generations to come. 

Empowering Local Physicians

Richard Siegal, one of our surgeons and a longtime Interplast volunteer, is shown here teaching Tsien/Melanie (her real name is Tsien, but she wants us to call her Melanie).  She is a post-doctoral student studying to be a maxillofacial surgeon.  She is really nice, and is always in the operating room peering over the shoulder of the surgeons and asking questions.  Even on a break from surgery she is picking Rich's brain. 

This is what Interplast is all about.  Rich is a great surgeon, but he is the first to tell you that the most effective way to achieve lasting change is by training other doctors in advanced techniques.  He really enjoys teaching Melanie and the other local doctors, and recognizes that empowering local physicians is of the highest priority. 

 

From a Local Volunteer

This post is written by Ding, an English major at Southern China University who is one of our local volunteers.  He speaks the local dialect, and is willing to do whatever is needed to help out the team.  Since he spends a lot of time with the patients and their families, I asked him to write a post to share his perspective, since the rest of the team is often so busy in the operating room and the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU):

"About 1,500 years ago, many Chinese historical books recorded quite a few cleft lip operations. Back then a man named Yongzhi Wei was born with a cleft, and by the time he was 18, he felt very frustrated because of his deformity.  Yongzhi Wei has his cleft repaired, and went on to became a senior official in feudal China, which is equivalent to the office of prime minister today. Yuqiang Dai, who is said to be one of the four best tenors in the world, also used to have a cleft lip.  After being operated on, he achieved great things, proving that a correctable birth deformity does not sentence one to a life of misery.

Many children in China have this defect. When born, some of them might be abandoned, girls in particular. Some of them might not be well treated by their parents. They might also be laughed at by other children. It is very bad for them to grow up with a healthy mind and a deformed face, because they feel like everyone else even though they look so different.  People in very remote areas do not realize why this defect occurs. Some even think that it is because the mother might have eaten rabbit meat during the pregnancy!

I never knew of Interplast until the day before yesterday.  The doctors in the team travel around the world, operating on people with clefts.  Now they are here, in Beibei district, Chongqing, China.  Many parents have brought their children here to receive treatment, and I am very impressed by what the doctors have done.

Today I talked with one of the patients. The boy said he wanted to learn English after the surgery.  He insisted while he was waiting outside the clinic that i should teach him a few English words so that he could say hello to the doctor and thank him/her after the surgery".