Dr. Laura Sudarsky and Dr. Win Pound pose with patients and their families. Today, Wednesday, was tour last day at the hospital. We checked up on all the patients and changed dressings and distributed medications as needed. All the families were very grateful and all the surgeries turned out great.
Last night, a local couple who used to live in the U.S. had all of the team over for a very nice dinner party to show their thanks. It was amazing and we are very grateful for their hospitality.

In total we operated on about 40 patients and screened about 60. I will post more exact numbers once we get the final counts. Some of the team are returning to Guayaquil today to fly back home while others of us will be spending a few more days in Ecuador at Puerta Lopez.

11/03/09

This is a picture of our patient, Vincente, he suffered burns during a house fire. He was lying in a hammock when the fire began and his parents could not find him. He was only eight months old. Yesterday he underwent major surgery on his face and is now recovering in the hospital with his mom and aunt. He is the sweetest boy and all the other children love him.

We want to let you all know how much we appreciate your support of this trip and thank you to all our sponsors for all the generous donations. We truly appreciate you all giving us so much so that we can help these children who otherwise would not have the means to get the surgeries they need. The parents have loved all of the clothes that we give them and the children always manage to crack a smile when given a stuffed animal or coloring book. Thank you all so much!

Trip pictures

So since we have so many pictures it is difficult to post all of them on the blog so I have created a website with all the pictures if you want to view more of them! Also there is a slide show of pictures from the album I created on photobucket but I am not sure if it loaded correctly with the slow internet connection here.

http://s743.photobucket.com/albums/xx80/HTCEcuador

RN, Denise Nicholson taking care of a recovering patient.

Majid Jamali and pediatrician, Dr. Arthur Buonaspina with our first patient to undergo surgery for lip repair. He was very scared but the pre-op team did a great job of calming him down. The surgery turned out nicely and he is now recovering in the hospital with his Grandma. His favorite activity during recovery time is to take pictures with my digital camera... he's a budding photographer!

Dr. Michael Koch and team working hard in the operating room