Page 46 - CASA Bulletin of Anesthesiology 2019 Issue 1

CASA Bulletin of Anesthesiology
safely without any complications. What made me feel satisfied was that the anesthesia machines in these operating rooms were the latest, except that all were written in Española. While we were evaluating patients, the other team members were busy processing all the instruments in the central sterile, which was one of the most critical steps in any successful surgical mission.
In central sterile, we had encountered our first obstacle. The central sterile department has
very limited amount of sterilizers that can process all the instruments. Since this is a tertiary care hospital, they have a busy surgical schedule. Central sterile has to process hospital’s instruments first before handling ours. This means that it would take much longer to process all instrument and the turn over between cases will be longer. Ultimately, we would have to work longer hours.
The hospital staff, nurses, doctors were extremely friendly to us. I met with the local anesthesiologists, they were very happy with our mission team. The chief Dr. Morales told me to “feel free to ask for any help you need, equipment, IV, needles and medications” even though their supply is limited too. The warm welcome gave all the team members a boost on our morale. All of us were exhausted by the time we finished around 6 pm. This was just the beginning of mission. The real work is yet to start.
Day 2:
The real work started today. After breakfast, at 6:30 am sharp, we got on the bus, heading towards both hospitals.
Everyone started working as soon as we arrived at the hospital. Patients had all arrived and registered for the surgery. Our first two surgery trays had been processed by the hospital overnight and ready to go! The OR team quickly set up while we brought our first patient into the OR at
8 am. Our first patient was a 54 years old female, who has no previous medical history, but suffered from very severe arthritis. Her knee was so deformed that she barely can walk with her knees straight. Local doctors had very limited treatment options for her. Therefore, an opportunity like this could be life-changing for her.
Dr. Patel and I started with ultrasound guided adductor canal block for post-operative pain
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