From Beverly Kent,
Director of Volunteer Services (October 1):
We are doing very well as a team. We have completed 44 surgeries so far and we are certainly going to surpass the number we did last year.
Anesthesiologist Mark Singleton will be giving a presentation to the local staff today. They are very eager to learn and have given him a list of topics they’d like covered. The same goes with the surgical and nursing staff. Mostly, they are interested in the basics of burn care. The burns here are horrific. We saddened at the horrible burn scars and contractures and how avoidable the burns are in the first place. We are glad the medical community―at least the hospital we are working from― is concerned about burn care. Severe burns are a huge problem in Africa and many developing countries. For example, African children lose six times more productive years from disabling fire burns than from war.
Jacques continues to be the hero of the team. He is exactly the type of coordinator each trip should have. Not only is he able to hop on the back of a motorcycle at a moment's notice to get us essential items, he is so sweet with the kids and the locals. He has even learned lots of Bambara and is able to comfort the patients. The staff loves him. They seem to love all of us and appreciate everything we are doing.
We are also going to have the team party at the American International Club of Bamako.
Must go back to work. Just wanted to give an update.
I used to go there as a child in the early 90's. The club had a baseball diamond we would play every friday
Posted by: jim | April 15, 2011 at 02:19 PM