Operate one week with local Kenyan surgeons to make them better. I have been a pert of this trip since 2011, and we our team has measurably improved the head and neck surgical skills in East Africa. We are moving to a different hospital because the hospital we have worked with up to 2025 is now functioning independently with major tumor resections and reconstructions, and it is time to start teaching at another hospital.
Doctors-the head and neck surgeons at Kenyatta University Hospital work with us and learn
Patients-generally low or no income patients. The hospital we work in gives us the hospital for the whole week without charging patients so that teaching and health care are both maximized.
We are "fishing" with the doctors and teaching them to "fish" as well, and because we will be working with the same group of doctors each trip, we get to witness them getting better with each trip.
Here is one example of a tumor that we removed. In a country with limited access to health care, tumors here can certainly grow to be very large. This benign tumor had been growing for 30 years. Not only were we able to remove this tumor for him, but we also did it with the local Kenyan surgeons. I personally did this case with two Kenyan surgeons, one of whom did practically the entire case. The surgeons with whom we operate are getting better with each trip and are reaching the skill level of surgeons trained here in the great United States of America. We will be going back to work with them again doing more and more complex surgeries in April 2027. We are honored and blessed to have this opportunity.
