CURE CARIBE: November 2008

When a gift is given from one human being to another a special feeling is created within both the receiver and the giver. Dr. Ray Woo and his team have now just completed their 5^th trip to CURE DR. This miraculous feeling from transactions driven by love is one that was felt by all of us including our patients. Because of Dr. Woo and his nurse Ana’s long term commitment to our hospital we have been able to greatly improved our spinal deformity program. Both in terms of equipment and patient safety we have advanced dramatically. Repeat visits by short term teams as well as a local organized infrastructure is the key to success for performing such sophisticated operations in the developing world.

We owe special thanks to K2 Medical for the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of implants that were used this week. Each member of the team is vitally important to the success of the work. Paul Caron and Autumn Sutterlin of K2 Medical, Larry Daly (anesthesia), and Carrie Bower (neuromonitoring) as well as our Dominican doctors and nurses all worked hard for the success of this trip.

Both in the United States and the Dominican Republic the work for these trips starts many months before the trip takes place, gathering equipment and planning for cases. This past week we had the privilege of using the Nuvasive thoracotomy retractor system, Aquamantys coagulator, FloSeal, Grafton and the other products only available in the most advanced centers in the modern world. On the behalf or our patients and also myself I would like to thank all those who gave and spent their time preparing these products.

Arne 16 came to the CURE clinic with her sister in Cap Haitian, Haiti. Both of their parents are dead. With the help of Cross International they were able to travel to CURE Santo Domingo to have surgery for her 85 degree scoliosis.