Quang Ngai, Vietnam -- Marion McGovern, ReSurge board member
We start at approximately 6:30 a.m. in the hotel dining room. The buffet is all laid out with rice, different stir frys, various fish cakes, and many other things I cannot identify. There is also a section with cut up fruit, from mundane watermelon to the more exotic dragon fruit. At a separate station, you can get scrambled eggs or some kind of noodle soup. A vestige of the French colonial period, baguettes with butter and jam are always available. The coffee tastes odd, but the tea is very good.
By 7:00 a.m. the walking squad heads off to the hospital. It is only a mile, an easy walk, unless you have to cross the street. In that case, you need to watch out for the sea of motorcycles that may or may not be watching out for you. You don't see cars in Quang Ngai, except for taxis and tourist vans. Motorcycles, however, are everywhere and traffic laws seem to be a bit free form. Crosswalks are more decorative then functional, so one needs to be bold, not hesitate, and just try to make it across. Having five other people with you does help.
As we walk by the local children would always scream "hello" at us; we were quite the novelty. One boy asked where we were from in fairly good English. When we said the United States, he smiled broadly and said, "me, I'm from Vietnam!"
When we arrive at the hospital, we change into our scrubs and head off to our respective duties. The doctors and the translators head up to the ward for rounds to discharge the cases from the day before who can now head home, and to check on those who are on the surgical docket for the day.
I typically head to the storage room to help with the mountains of paperwork involved in the trip. Each cleft lip and palate procedure done in Quang Ngai is funded by The Smile Train, who as such, is a major donor to ReSurge. Every cleft lip patient needs to have their photo taken prior to the procedure and afterwards. Cleft palate patients need three pictures, two of which are taken in surgery when a large mouth opening apparatus (" Dingman") is inserted. There are very strict requirements for the angle, scale and size of the photo. A bad photo could mean no funding, so precision is important. Luckily, the doctors and nurses are sensitive to this. So in the midst of the flurry of activity involved in getting a young patient sedated and prepped for surgery, you will hear someone shout, "Smile Train". That was always my cue, to run over with the camera and get the shot. Then I would have to resize it to meet the specifications, and record the frame number on a special Smile Train photo roster.
Elizabeth, my travelling partner also helped the team out however she could. We were happy to be "gophers" for the medical team. If Wendell, ReSurge volunteer nurse, needed a mom to be brought to a post op patient, we would find Catherine or Fi, her Vietnamese counterpart, to go find the parent. If a stretcher was needed, we'd oblige. And, of course there was always some paperwork that we could do to help Catherine, our translator and trip administrator.
But often we would just watch the surgeries. As someone who almost fainted when my daughter had stitches in her eyebrow, I was a bit concerned about how I would fare in the OR. As it turned out, I found it fascinating. It was amazing to see the transformations that the surgeons could make on the cleft lip patients. Some of the burn procedures were more difficult to watch, as they involved cauterization and skin grafts, but the end results were amazing.
Dr. Bill McClure, our trip leader, was a born teacher. As he operated, he would explain his approach. He might point out aspects that make the surgery tricky. He was always willing to answer a question we might have about the operation. In between such lessons, there would be discussions about a host of topics, from how Bills Irish dad met his Chinese mom, to other ReSurge trips to even the Academy Awards. Even during the long and intense procedures there was an air of camaraderie in the room.
The end of the day would come when the last patient left the recovery room. Then the doctors, along with the translators, would go on rounds to check on the days patients and check in with their families.
Finally, it would be time to head back to our hotel. Once it was light enough to walk, but most days it was dark, and given the motorcycle factor, which makes crossing a street a bit like Russian roulette, we opted to cab back. It wasn't worth it to take the risk, since these medical volunteers need to be there the next day to do it all over again.
