During this one month trip to Lusaka Zambia
1. I will partner with anesthesia providers at the Beit CURE Children's Hospital in Zambia to provide anesthesia care to children undergoing various types of surgery.
2. I will have the opportunity to participate in the training and education of local anesthesia providers.
The Beit CURE Children's hospital of Zambia performs over 1600 life-changing reconstructive, orthopedic, ENT and audiological surgeries each year for children suffering from treatable disabilities. Being able to provide quality anesthesia care and pain management for these children will have a great impact on the quality of life of children in Lusaka, Zambia and beyond. Giving these children the opportunity to live a full life, achieving their greatest potential without limitations in their physical abilities will serve the patients, their families and their communities well and will allow them to be productive members of their societies.
Currently there are over 5 billion people worldwide who do not have access to safe surgical and obstetric care. As an anesthesia provider, my mission is to work collaboratively with local providers to increase their capacity to provide this much needed safe anesthesia care. The knowledge and skills transferred to the local providers will carry forward and allow them to be able to continue to provide quality care to their people. I will also learn about how to be a steward of resources and the skills necessary to provide anesthesia care in resource poor settings.
I worked at Beit Cure Children's hospital in Lusaka Zambia. Children ages 1-18 come from all over Zambia to access free orthopedic, ear nose and throat surgeries as well as plastic craniofacial reconstructive surgeries. These children have mostly been debilitated by these deformities so it was a wonderful experience working with the surgeons to provide anesthesia and pain management to these children. I was also able to work with the anesthesia providers at Beit cure to discuss additional ways of assessing and providing pain management to the children.
