Dehradun, India--Bonnie MacEvoy, Interplast volunteer anesthesiologist.
The hospital is actually a converted two-story house. The area for the physical and occupational therapy is upstairs. Since this trip will consist mostly of burn patients, there will be much work to do post-operatively in the way of splints, range-of-motion, exercise, dressing changes, and education.
Our hosts are Interplast’s surgical outreach director, Dr. Yogi and his son Dr. Kush. Together they do much work for the people of this area year round. They are wonderful facilitators for our team, and assist and do cases too. They are Interplast’s outreach partners and continue this invaluable work well after the team leaves. It is the mission of Interplast not to come into an area and simply perform procedures, leaving a void behind, but to integrate, teach and eventually turn over the reconstructive surgical work to the local people. The old “teach a man to fish” approach. And that’s what Interplast has done here, but there is such a great need that teams are needed to help with the backlog of cases.
There are more than 10,000 burn victims (most of them children) in this area alone. Most of them are extremely poor and would otherwise never have access to these procedures. When they receive surgery, whether from Dr. Yogi and Dr. Kush or from the Interplast surgical team, they are forever grateful and many remain to help Dr. Yogi with his work.
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