Faces of Tomorrow

2009 Mission

Our first mission took place in Quito, Ecuador January 9-18, 2009.
With great humility we are thrilled to report that the mission was a huge success. Many lives were changed including every member of our team.

Here is a brief summary of our mission:

Our team

We traveled to Ecuador with a team of 33 and added 4 Peace Corps workers stationed in Ecuador. Our team consisted of 5 surgeons, 4 anesthesiologists, 1 pediatric pulminologist, 1 speech pathologist, 1 orthodontist, 2 dentists, 12 nurses, 3 social workers, 3 administrators and 1 videographer.

We worked closely with the officials of Tierra Nueva Hospital to establish a culturally responsive atmosphere as well as to begin the process of hands on training with their medical professionals.

Patients waiting to be screened

On January 11th- over a 100 patients were screened, some of whom had traveled as much as 16 hours to find care. Each patient was considered based on severity of condition and age. The triage included surgical review, pediatric evaluation, anesthesia evaluation, dental review and for the majority, a review by our speech pathologist. We then scheduled those who we would be able to help, for surgery over the next five days.

Dr. Shih operating

January 12th-16th In all, we were able to help nearly 100 patients. We performed 16 cleft palate surgeries, 14 cleft lip surgeries, 11 lip revisions, 5 pharyngyoplasties, 5 palate fistula surgeries and 4 rhinoplasties. In addition, our dental team performed several procedures on another 30 patients, including extractions, fillings, and creation of obturators (molds for less serious palate cases). We also held education sessions for caretakers and families. Topics included, speech training, dental hygiene and post surgical care.

January 17th- The day was comprised of seeing all surgical patients and their families for discharge. We had all grown so attached to these wonderful people that this day turned out to be quite emotional. The doctors and the patients and their families alike shed many tears.

Dr. Rubinstein in recovery with a young patient

Our Speech Pathalogist, Rhona with Paola

Recovering after
reconstructive surgery