A Testimony from a Medical Team Member
Written by Asheema Pruthi, MD, Resident Physician at Eastern Virginia Medical School
From May 20th to 25th, 2024, I was fortunate enough to join the Healing the Children team on a humanitarian trip to Mwanza, Tanzania. The surgeons on the trip were Dr. William Dougherty, Dr. Dane Barrett, and Dr. Jim Ross. This is Healing the Children’s second mission to Mwanza, and we returned to Buganda Medical Center. Our visiting team consisted of nurses, speech language pathologists, pediatricians, anesthesiologists, surgeons, and resident surgeons. We partnered with local surgeons, anesthesiology providers, medical students, nurses, and speech language pathologists. We held educational conferences throughout the week in addition to hands-on teaching with surgeons, anesthesiologists, and nurses. There was an incredible collaboration between the local team and our visiting team.
During our busy week, we visited with over 55 patients and performed over 30 procedures. The majority of our operations were cleft lip and palate revisions for malpositioned, hypertrophic scars or nasoalveolar fistulas. Many of these patients had existing speech and swallow challenges that prompted our revision surgery. We were fortunate to have two American speech therapists join our team. During the week, our speech pathologists, Lindsey and Ysabella, worked closely with the local speech therapist, Adam. They hosted over 60 counseling sessions, working closely with patients pre-operatively and post-operatively.
Although our trip primarily focused on management of cleft lip and palate patients, our team did a wide range of ENT and facial plastic surgeries including thyroidectomies, sinus surgery, scar revisions, and microtia repairs. During our mission, I assisted Dr. Dougherty in a complete auricular reconstruction. Our patient, Grace, suffered a traumatic auricular amputation during an assault. Grace was initially evaluated on the last mission trip in August. Last August, a surgical plan was discussed and she eagerly awaited our return for surgery- she was reportedly calling the local clinic twice a week for an update on our pending visit. Grace received the 5-hour surgery and recovered exceptionally well.
Throughout the week, I was continuously amazed at the immense appreciation from the patients, staff, and local team. Although it was not easy to communicate with our patients due to the language barrier, their appreciation and gratitude was palpable. Many surgical trainees traveled multiple hours to learn and collaborate with our team this week. The residents and fellows were hospitable, always assisting with obtaining necessary supplies and guiding us around the hospital to visit the in-patients. We were amazed at the number of observers joining each of our procedures, each with immense eagerness to learn from our team.
I am currently a PGY-3 otolaryngology resident at Eastern Virginia Medical School. This was my first medical humanitarian trip, and will definitely not be my last. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to collaborate and operate with local surgeons in the management of challenging patients. The new friendships I made with local trainees and surgeons in and out of the operating room is something I will never forget.
