Day 5 of Surgery: No Shows and Will Gos

Scheduling is very important in order for us to plan for and move the patients through only seven days of surgery. It's a very compressed schedule and the patient needs are high. However, today was an exercise in flexibility of the highest order. And it brought out the crazy in many of us. I'll admit that I was probably the first to slide down that slippery slope.

Arriving to the hospital we had a full schedule of patients waiting to receive burn revision and contracture release surgeries – much like I described in the Day 4 posting. However, upon going to the waiting room to check them in, we discovered that only two of the scheduled patients (out of 9) were waiting for us. So we checked them in and started to ask about all of the other people in the room sitting around. They were scheduled for Day 6, but had arrived a day earlier to see if they might be fit in. This might seem like a good idea except that we had several MIA patients to locate now.

After about three hours of confusion, we ended up with a full schedule. But the Rotarians were not happy that so many patients had not shown for their appointments after going through the clinic and everything else to get them on the schedule. They even made some calls and came to discover that some patients changed their minds and others just figured they could come the next day. Frustrated, the Rotarians started calling all of the patients to confirm the next day’s schedule so that we wouldn’t have a repeat – it’s important that our time is used well while we’re here…we only have two more days of surgeries to do and then we’ll be leaving for home or tourism.

I guess the good news is that we had some “will gos” show up to replace the “no shows” so we were still in business. As of the end of today, we have done surgery on 53 patients with many more procedures and dental exams. We’re still making good progress.

And now for a few random pictures from the hospital...

The morning was crazy enough that I had to break up my monkey puppet for
a therapy session. We talked it out and both felt better afterwards.

Recovering baby in a hammock with a happy mother
sitting closely by.

Mary doing what she probably never guessed would be her
specialty on this mission: processing pregnancy tests.

In the PACU (post anesthesia care unit), Mary, our PACU
assistant (left), and Bruce, our PACU lead nurse (right)
talk to a father about his child as they try to wake him
from anesthesia.

Photojournalist Dave holds one of his favorite patients, little Harisaravan, who
had surgery on the first day. I mentioned him in a prior post when he uttered
"mama" for the first time. He never cries...just a happy little guy who will
have a better life because his lip was repaired.