We work with The Shalom Foundation at the Moore Center in Guatemala to provide much needed pediatric surgical care. As a pediatric urologist i will perform surgery on children who need surgical correction of important conditions that unfortunately do not rise to the level of accuity to obtain attention with the limited resources at the government hospital. This includes orchiopexy for undescended testes includig in-abdominal testes, circumcision for very symptomatic phimosis, repair of hypospadias and complications of hypospadias surgeries as well as correction of vesicoureteral reflux. I have been to Guatemala more than 10 times and can guarantee and meaningful trip.
Children in Guatemala who fall between the cracks of the limited social net. Severe conditions get treated. These children wait for very long times and are often never receiving this necessary surgical care they need.
In addition to the benefit of these children we try to work with local medical students and professional colleagues to improve their skills and fund of knowledge.
Dear Dox Foundation,
Thank you for supporting travel for my recent surgical mission to Guatemala.
The mission was sponsored by Ohana One and was performed at the Moore Center which is free standing medical center funded by the Shalom Foundation.
During this trip we had two surgical services- pediatric urology and pediatric plastic surgery. I was the pediatric urologist and will discuss that element of the trip.
On arrival we had the opportunity to evaluate 70 children for surgery. The children had already been prescreened by a local pediatric surgeon.
We were able to schedule 23 children to fill the time available. There were about another 9 children that we asked to return in 6 months when another team will be there. During the week one child showed signs of a respiratory infection and thus we were able to complete 22 surgeries in the 4 operative days.
The role of this mission is to care for children who have clinically significant conditions but that are not acute enough to reach the top of the list in the overwhelmed public health sector. These families also do not have the resources to access the private health sector and thus these children fall through the cracks. In addition there are several children with significant hypospadias for which the expertise is limited.
In these children, we performed 6 complex hypospadias repairs, 4 very proximal and 2 redos, one urachal sinus excision and many orchiopexies. Fortunately, there were no immediate complications.
In addition the local pediatric surgeon joined me for two complex hypospadias cases. And we had the added impact of working with 4 local medical students throughout the week.
Thus not only did we help these children. We fulfilled the mission of Ohana One of expanding surgical training. This was our second year at this facility and I hope this will continue to be an annual event and that we can continue to grow the educational component.
I thank you for your support and I know it goes a long way in helping to make this mission happen.
Sincerely,
Andrew Freedman M.D.
