I will be traveling to Mwandi in Western Zambia in March of 2025 with a small team of surgeons in the fields of General Surgery, Urology, and Plastic Surgery with the intention of training and assisting with release of pediatric burn contractures as well as with the education/training of local surgical residents from larger cities in Zambia on how to prevent burn contractures when these pediatric open cooking fire burns first occur. Not only will we be able to take care of burn contractures from Mwandi and from the surrounding areas, but we will also be able to educate Zambian physicians on how to treat and prevent these contractures from happening in the future.
The population served by this trip will primarily be the pediatric population of Mwandi and the surrounding rural areas of Zambia also with benefit to future patients who experience burn injuries and are in need of burn care. This population of people primarily engages in open fire cooking methods which unfortunately results in large volumes of open fire burns primarily to the pediatric population. Without burn care available, these injuries become life-altering contractures which result in the inability to work and often in isolation away from society.
As a resident hoping to match into continued training in plastic surgery (independent residency after completion of training in general surgery), I am hoping to include burn care in my future practice and would really love to continue visiting the Mwandi community as an attending one day to continue to serve this very special population. To have the opportunity to visit and serve this population as a resident while completing procedures I hope to one day include in my practice would be truly incredible and would certainly have an impact on my future as a hopeful plastic surgeon as well as on the Mwandi Mission Hospital and its patient population as I am ideally able to continue visiting in years to come.
Our team visited the rural village of Mwandi in Zambia to offer plastic and urologic surgical intervention to patients up to seven hours away. Our patients traveled by bus, by foot, and by private vehicle after receiving notice that these specialties would be available on those dates and would be intervening on common conditions such as urethral stricture, BPH, and burn contracture. As a resident assisting the plastic surgery OR, I had the unique opportunity to assist with numerous patients that had suffered childhood burns to the hands, face, arms, and legs now of various ages with contracture release and skin grafting. It was incredibly rewarding to get to restore a significant amount of function in the extremities, especially in patients that were incredibly kind, welcoming, and grateful. I consider myself to be incredibly fortunate to have gotten to go on the trip, and will forever be grateful to the Dox Foundation for allowing a dream mission trip to become a reality!
