Tomorrow morning at 5:45 I'll be flying out of Bradley (the local airport,) to Dulles in DC where I'll bide my time for 5 hours before boarding a 14 hour flight for Beijing. From there, we'll fly to Nanyang. I'm off to China again on short notice due to the pediatrician canceling. It always surprises me when a key member of the team cancels so close to the start of the mission; it sort of leaves everyone else in the lurch. This will be my 12th trip with Op Smile, and at least half of them have been this kind of urgent replacement requests. China would not have been my first choice for a return trip. Those of you who read my comments on the mission to HoHot, Inner Mongolia, will perhaps remember that it was difficult, lots of ceremony, fairly demanding well-off parents and children in need of only minor touch-up operations. However, this summer there were a variety of family events that meant I had to turn down four missions, and I felt obligated to accept this one.
It will be a different sort of trip in that it is "local" meaning that Operation Smile China is staffing the trip with only a handful of international volunteers. The pediatrician (me,) one anesthesiologist and one nurse are from the U.S., and there is a nurse from UAE. The pediatric intensivist is listed as TBD, perhaps from somewhere other than China. There is a technician from the U.S., and one of the two program coordinators comes from the main office in Virginia. The rest of the team is from China. I do have a personal interpreter assigned to me - I hope her English is good and that she doesn't mind long hours.
Nanyang is in Henan province in southeast China. The over 10.5 million inhabitants speak the Henan Hua dialect. Oil, wine, cattle and tobacco are important in the city's economy, and the river which runs through the city provides abundant fish. Tourism is also very important and there are many temples and cathedrals as well as museums displaying ancient artifacts and art from past and current artists.
The mission will be held at the Nanyang Stomatological Hospital and will be smaller than the international missions I've attended. We'll be screening only 80 patients and plan for surgery on about 60.
More to come. Pictures on Picasa, links below. Please let me know if there are any problems with the links. Also, last time I was in China, blogs were blocked and WIFI was very intermittent. If you don't see entries, it may mean I'll have to put them in once I'm home. The mission runs 9/3-9/11.
It will be a different sort of trip in that it is "local" meaning that Operation Smile China is staffing the trip with only a handful of international volunteers. The pediatrician (me,) one anesthesiologist and one nurse are from the U.S., and there is a nurse from UAE. The pediatric intensivist is listed as TBD, perhaps from somewhere other than China. There is a technician from the U.S., and one of the two program coordinators comes from the main office in Virginia. The rest of the team is from China. I do have a personal interpreter assigned to me - I hope her English is good and that she doesn't mind long hours.
Nanyang is in Henan province in southeast China. The over 10.5 million inhabitants speak the Henan Hua dialect. Oil, wine, cattle and tobacco are important in the city's economy, and the river which runs through the city provides abundant fish. Tourism is also very important and there are many temples and cathedrals as well as museums displaying ancient artifacts and art from past and current artists.
The mission will be held at the Nanyang Stomatological Hospital and will be smaller than the international missions I've attended. We'll be screening only 80 patients and plan for surgery on about 60.
More to come. Pictures on Picasa, links below. Please let me know if there are any problems with the links. Also, last time I was in China, blogs were blocked and WIFI was very intermittent. If you don't see entries, it may mean I'll have to put them in once I'm home. The mission runs 9/3-9/11.
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