Page 19 - CASA Bulletin 2019 Vol6 No2

My Report to ASA-GHO
I am very fortunate to arrive Georgetown Guyana at the long-stretched sunny and dry season, meanwhile, my colleagues and friends in Washington DC are experiencing several winter snowstorms in the middle of spring bloom .
Just as life is balanced with Yang and Yin, our good fortune of escaping treacherous weather is also offset by not-so-lucky housing arrangement upon arrival . To my surprise, I found out our CA3 resident Jessica Ivey and I were sent out to two different hotels instead of Project Dawn, the primary residential place for volunteers . Jessica was in Signature Inn, and I was in El Dorado Inn, both close to the Georgetown Public Hospital located at the not quite safe district . Since I couldn’t get in touch with Dr . Harvey who was on vacation out of country, I replied to Jess’s email to stay inside her hotel and wait for her transportation in the morning . Jessica’s past experience of abroad mission trips helped her keep calm and handle the situation well . Next morning, I discovered that another medical volunteer team from USA called H .E .R .O occupied the entire Project Dawn compound, there were over 50 volunteers in their team consisting of orthopedic and plastic surgeons, three CRNAs from New York City and one anesthesiologist/ pain specialist from Atlanta, Georgia, OR nurses, scrub technicians, pharmacists and pre-med college students from University Florida . They were extremely busy operating on many kids with congenital club feet, hip dislocation, cleft palate/lip, and other deformities from morning
to late evenings . Most of volunteers have originally come from Guyana and still have family members living here . This mission team has been working biannually, usually in March and August for 17 years, all the staff are very welcome and supportive by local host. They bring in all the medications, equipment, angiocath, needles and syringes needed for surgery . It’s a typical model of charity volunteering: free medical care to poor disabled patients who cannot afford operations otherwise . All the local anesthesia residents were assigned to work with the CRNA volunteers from USA the first week we were there.
We managed to teach residents
every morning on their cases and have covered all the required topics with active discussions on hypothermia/hyperthermia/ awareness under anesthesia, crisis management of hypotension, hypertension, bronchospasm, difficult airway, conducted MH mock drill with 3rd and 4th year residents . Jessica has tirelessly taught two senior residents with mock oral exams . Jess and I have been demonstrating regional blocks several times . At the end
Vol.6, No.2, 2019
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