Teaching at La Gonave

Haiti 2010 - La Gonave surgery, Day 2

Today we did 3 more cases that had been waiting for us, and another unexpected... Ravi did a great a job with the C-section we were anticipating all night - a beautiful baby boy of 2 kg and his lovely sister of 1.7 kg came into the world. They are doing well enough, but would be definite ICU babies back home.

Diane. one of the folks running the guest house here, is also a Physician Assistant. She came into the OR today and learned about doing spinals; she indicated a need for teaching here so we figured we'd put it into practice today!

Miss Vero, the very competent Haitian RN who performs most of the anaesthesia for emergency cases when visiting docs aren't here, is also very keen to learn. We went over some airway stuff and pharmacology - she is a quick learner, and as keen a learner as I've ever seen.

Tomorrow we have a few more cases, and the boat off the island back to 'mainland' Haiti has been delayed a few hours to let us finish our cases. We are slowly winding down with mixed emotions.; though the fatigue is rapidly catching up to us, we almost don't want to leave. I think we could work every day here doing surgery.