As a surgeon I will participate in a two week mission with the VOOM Medical Group at the Dame Irene Okwuosa Memorial Hospital, Oraifile, Nigeria to perform cardiac surgery - we anticipate 3-4 cardiac surgeries a day and hope to mentor and educate local physicians in our techniques and management as a step toward helping them to elevate their level of care as a strep toward becoming self sustaining
local people in the surrounding region who have no other access to this level of health care or expertise
the impact for both patients and staff is expected to be very significant - we will greatly impact the lives of each patient on whom we operate and will provide an educational foundation for permanent staff whose vision is to bring much needed health care to a very underserved people
We worked in a remote hospital in south eastern Nigeria alongside the medical staff who serves there full time. Our goal was to teach doctors and nursing staff current practices of cardiac surgery with the long term goal of helping them develop their skills in both surgery and patient management as part of the vision for them to become an independent and self sufficient cardiac surgery program.During our stay, we were able to perform 30 cardiac surgeries providing much needed care for people with no other hope of accessing any type of advanced cardiac care.We were very gratified by the warm reception given to our team by both patients, their families and the staff. This will be an ongoing twice a year mission which I expect to participate in again in 2026. Nigeria is a country which is in great need of adequate medical care - we are very pleased to play a small part in helping to develop those services
