We are already in our second week of surgeries, and none of us can believe how quickly the time is passing. Over the weekend, we visited a cultural museum in Cuenca, a nearby city. There we learned about the history of the Ecuadorian people and saw models of traditional Ecuadorian homes. Many of these homes had large open cooking fires with no barriers in the middle of the room, and it was easy to see why so many children are severely burned in household accidents.
Today we operated on a little 3 year-old girl named Rosa, who had been horribly burned in a typical household accident. Her parents had traveled with her for many hours so that she could be seen by the Interplast team. Sadly, she had not received proper post-burn care after her injury, and as her burns started to heal, she developed a burn contracture and was unable to lift her chin because it was stuck to her neck. Our surgeons happily took on her case and worked today to release her contracture so that she will be able to move her head and lead a more normal life.
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