We began the morning with a team photo.
We say team, but yes we were missing a few people. But, with a few exceptions, here is a great shot of most of us.
You may wonder who that is behind Vickie Magliano. It is Brian Longo!
The surgery team finished on time for the third day. Yesterday, they were supposed to turn off the electricity for an hour. That meant we would NOT want to have anyone under anesthesia when that was to happen at 3:40 PM for half an hour. Then they said that they were not going to do this after all, and that they had a generator that would kick on anyway. As it turns out, they did turn the electricity off an hour later than threatened and yes, we had a patient in surgery. Everyone remained calm and all was well when the lights came back on some twenty minutes later. The Surgery team has felt that they have one of the best compositions for team members of any year, in attitude and effectiveness. They are all beaming as they return to hang out together outside their rooms each night.
Patchakan Village is one that we have gone to for many years. The Presbyterian’s started a clinic that was greatly helped by a decade stint by their lead doctor, Dr. Wiley Smith. In our early years, he was very strategic in helping our teams “translate” the cultural differences. He has since left the country and gone on to some other mission endeavors, but it is always great to be back with the staff he helped to develop and the clinic that is not self sustaining with thousands of patients. We had less than one hundred patients this year. This gave us an opportunity to visit many local homes and do visits with people who were not able to get out to see a doctor.