I, along with my team from Global Healing Hands, will be traveling to Butuan City, Phillipines to provide care to those that would otherwise not receive treatment. We will be conducting a high volume of the following procedures: cholecystectomies, thyroidectomies, hernia repairs, as well as cleft palate repairs. We will be following and rounding on all post surgical patients with the local hospital providers and staff, working collaboratively as well as teaching and learning from each other.
We have planned presentations throughout the week for formal teaching with the local hospital staff, as well. In doing so, we hope to leave a lasting positive footprint in Butuan City, so that this underserved population will continue to receive higher quality care.
The population likely to be served on out surgical mission trip will be primarily low-income residents from rural barangays who would otherwise not have access to specialized surgical care due to geographic and financial barriers. Global Healing Hands has been in contact with the local hospital and has ensured a high volume of patients will be coming in solely for our planned mission trip. This coordination will ensure that we will improve the lives of many underserved peoples that would otherwise be suffering from chronic and acute illnesses.
The improvement in quality of life and prolongation of life of the patients we treat are of the upmost importance. And the collaborative efforts with the hospital staff will hopefully lead to a bountiful amount of teaching that will lead to improved care on, not only the filipinos, but on our teams as well. This is a very rewarding aspect of traveling around the world to provide care and work with all those willing to participate.
As stated above, we will have planned seminar learnings with the local hospital staff to provide long term learnings. This is Global Healing Hands first trip to the Phillipines and we hope to build a lasting relationship and return in the near future to provide even more care.
This surgical mission trip was a tremendous success due to the collaboration between our team Global Healing Hands and the local Filipino staff. Prior to our arrival, notifications of our arrival and the free medical care for the surgical treatment of thyroid disease, as necessary, was broadcasted by the local staff via television and radio broadcast and word of mouth. This led to greater outreach to those whom live in lower socioeconomic and rural regions of the island of Mindanao, Philippines. We screened over 90 patients upon our arrival, and determined that over 30 of them were surgical candidates for thyroid lobectomies. With the help of local translators, we were able to communicate the risks and benefits of surgery, and to obtain both surgical and anesthesia consents. Despite the patients' lack of medical knowledge, in most cases, many of them were incredibly appreciative of our team and desire to help the filipino people and the less fortunate of the local Mindinao people. We ultimately were able to successfully complete 32 thyroid surgeries. All patients were rounded on post operatively and safely discharged. Discharge planning was completed with the help of the local hospital staff.
Not only were the patient and people of the Philippines impacted by our trip, but I can certainly say that I, myself, was impacted by this mission trip. I feel so blessed and fortunate to have the ability to help those in need around the world, and to have the Doximity Foundation's support in doing so. Seeing the smiles and appreciation on the patients' faces the days after surgery is the ultimate gratification. I look forward to further outreach and mission trips in the future.
