I am a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist. I will be providing general anesthesia to the patients undergoing the complex Head & Neck surgical cases that will be performed during our mission trip in Laos. This will be my 3rd medical mission with Operation International Team Manhattan. We provide free high quality to surgical services to patients not otherwise have access to this care. The procedures that we perform improves the quality of life and are life changing for this underserved community
Our mission will take place in Pakse, Laos. The people of this community are poor, underserved and lack much needed access to high quality health care & surgical procedures. One of our main missions in Operation International is to help improve the health & access to care for poor and underserved communities around the world
During our mission we will perform approximately 80-100 surgical procedures including thyroidectomy, parotidectomy, removal of large head & neck masses, cleft lip and cleft palate. During all of our mission we help educate & train the community hospital so that they will hopefully become more knowledgeable practitioners and continue to provide some of these procedures to the community after our mission has completed
We had an awesome mission in Laos. We were able to perform a total of 90 head and neck surgical procedures on adult and pediatric patients in 5 days. These procedures were life changing for the patients and they were so grateful that we were there to help them. We were also able to collaborate with the medical staff at the hospital and teach them new skills that will help them provide better care for the people of Laos once we're gone. Attending these medical missions are also life changing for me. When you see how much the poor and under served populations need your help and you see the change that you make in their lives, it brings me a sense of gratitude and inspires me to continue doing this work.
