Mission Update: Philippines 2013 – A Calling to Order

February 26, 2013

Monday was the first day of surgeries for the World Surgical Foundation mission in Coron, Palawan. The team arrived on schedule and spent much of the morning working out the logistics of the hospital, assigning duties for the volunteers and locating all of the equipment and supplies stored in various rooms.

Surgeries were scheduled to begin at 8:00 AM but many of the patients arrived later due to the long distances they had to travel. Other surgeries were delayed because patients did not fast 6-8 hours prior to their operations requiring anesthesia. Something as simple as a chicken nugget or the regular feeding of a baby pushed procedures off until the afternoon or next day.

OB/GYN cases were the first to begin at 8:30 AM with general following at 9:30. Pediatric and plastic surgery cases could not start until 1:30 PM waiting for the patients who ate or drank to be ready. But by the end of the day only one pediatric case had to be rescheduled. In total 77 procedures were performed including 42 minor surgeries, 22 OB/GYN plus 13 plastic and pediatric surgeries.

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