Operation Smile Rotation Offers
Med Students Global View
GW Represented On Three Overseas Missions
GW Medical Center has
been participating in Operation Smile missions in three separate
countries. Operation Smile provides free reconstructive surgery
and related healthcare to indigent children with cleft lips and
palates, other facial deformities or injuries, and burns in the
United States and developing nations.
Medical students participating in a fourth-year
elective, a medical resident, and a GW anesthesiologist joined
recent missions in China, Thailand, and Kenya. The elective, which
has been offered at GW for four years, allows fourth-year medical
students to join an international mission team. Students assist
volunteer pediatricians, surgeons, anesthesiologists and intensivists
by taking histories, helping with physical examinations, assisting
in the operating room, and providing post-operative care.
(Rex Mathew assists in surgery.)
Rex Mathew helped perform a number of life-changing
surgeries in Nakhon Si Tammarat, Thailand. The Thailand mission
team performed more than 150 surgeries, including a six-year-old
boy who had been disabled by extensive burns for five years. According
to Mr. Mathew, "Operation Smile doctors were able to release
some of his contractures to free his thumb. They placed a radial
forearm graft onto his palm to aid in healing." The surgery
allows the boy to perform such basic tasks as feeding and bathing
himself. "Before the mission, I found it impressive that
so many healthcare professionals could come together from so far
away for just one cause," he said.
(Linda Tang and two children who are Operation
Smile candidates in Nanjing.)
Linda Tang, Dr. Junker, and Dr. Gray spent 10
days participating in a mission to Nanjing, China. Ms. Tang described
the great demand for facial reconstructive surgery in China: "When
we got to the hospital grounds, there was a line extending almost
a quarter of a mile of parents and children waiting to be screened.
One family had traveled eight hours by boat just for this mission."
Many families, in fact, traveled great distances in hopes that
their children would be selected for surgery. Cleft deformities
are common in China and often result in great social stigma for
the children. The mission was a first-time visit for Dr. Gray,
who found the exposure to Chinese medical practice fascinating
and was moved by the families' efforts for their children. She
said the team was "willing to work longer days, into the
wee hours, if it meant that children who needed surgery could
receive it."
Summing up the Operation Smile experience
from a medical perspective, Dr. Junker said, "The mission
is the chance to practice medicine in the way we envisioned when
we set out on our career paths." This was his second Operation
Smile mission.
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©
2001 The George Washington University Medical Center
