Global Medical and Surgical Teams

Promoting Health and Healing Around the World

COVID-19

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‘Tis the season for being grateful…and generous

How can the world be so different in such a short time? I mused as I sat down to write this annual letter after reviewing the one that I wrote to you one year ago. As I reflected on the many things for which I am thankful this year, I also realized that the burdens have gotten much heavier for many during this global pandemic. My heart goes out to all who have suffered from the virus or who have lost family or friends. It has been a difficult year for everyone in one way or another.

Our teams have been unable to return to Kenya or to Uganda this fall and winter. Out of an abundance of caution for our patients, their families, in-country health care workers and our own team members, we await a safer time to travel. Meanwhile, children with cleft lip and palate are born every day and the paucity of surgeons in Kenya and Uganda will lead to a pent up demand for our services and ongoing suffering for the untreated patients. Therefore, we ask for your generous donations to prepare us to meet these needs. For those who are able to help us prepare for upcoming trips in 2021, we are grateful. We are tentatively planning for an August, 2021 trip to Uganda as we hope for successful vaccination programs. Our monthly fixed expenses have continued during the pandemic and we have held off on fundraising until now. We want to be ready and able to purchase supplies and equipment as soon as we determine that it is safe for us to travel. For those who are unable to give financially, we also covet your well wishes and prayers that we can soon resume our travels and continue training nurses and doctors to provide specialized surgical care to their fellow citizens.

Because of your gifts, people in remote areas of the world have access to necessary medical and surgical care. This is going to be even more important in the next few years as access to care has been reduced due to the pandemic.

May this season of being thankful and of giving find you safe and in good spirits. Thank you for making the world a better place, one smile at a time.

Sincerely,

Michelle

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Programming with an Eye to the Future

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and with the safety of our patients in mind, GMAST has postponed our 2020 trip to Kenya to a later date. With an eye to future trips, Donny Bertucci, who served as technical support on our 2018 and 2019 trips to Cure, Kijabe, assumed the role as 2020 summer intern to spearhead the development of an inventory system.  

Donny helping a patient inflate a soccer ball, October 2019, Cure Hospital, Kijabe, Kenya

A facet of our work that often proves challenging is the organization and tracking of medical supplies. Members of our team carry in suitcases containing hundreds of pounds of supplies every time we travel and, while most of it is used, we leave any remnants for our next trip or for the next cleft lip/palate team. In the past, we have kept large spreadsheets shared among the teams to track the locations and amounts of supplies, but Donny is working on a better solution. 

Suitcases of supplies on their way to Kenya, October 2019, Portland International Airport

Due to his experience with GMAST, Donny is uniquely qualified to address the specific issues that arise for international medical charities in the transportation and tracking of supplies. When describing his goals for the software, tentatively named MIS (Medical Inventory System), Donny stated:

“Usually when I am developing software I want to have a problem to solve in mind, and in this case the problems were: 1) It was hard to collaborate with other people in distant places to add to the inventory, 2) It becomes extremely time consuming and error prone to use spreadsheets to keep track of inventory, and 3) spreadsheets aren’t user friendly to many of our team members.

So with those problems in mind, It took around two months to create a mobile and shared medical inventory system (MIS) that is browser based and usable on their mobile phone, iPad, or laptop. MIS allows any number of team members to add or update our medical supplies inventory regardless of where they are (and we are spread out all over the world), documents what suitcase or box the supplies are going into, and allows for the team to see our entire inventory across all members. And when the team is in Uganda or Kenya, they can easily keep track of and change inventory on the fly. My hope is that MIS can save a lot of time, have complete accuracy, and be user friendly to everyone that goes on these trips.”

Screen capture of MIS

We look forward to utilizing MIS as soon as we are able to start work again. In the meantime wash your hands, wear a mask, and take care of eachother other.

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And now we’re all getting fitted for masks…

Throughout this pandemic we are having to adjust to change on a daily, if not hourly timeframe. Initially we were told masks weren’t necessary, but information has changed. Now the CDC is recommending we all wear masks in public to reduce transmission of COVID19 virus through droplets in the air. Since many people seem to have minimal to no symptoms early on, they are unaware that they may be transmitting the virus and exposing those by talking, singing, etc. I read a commentary by a retired academic ENT surgeon and I’m going to link to her post for a great summary of why you should wear a mask now–a cloth mask. But remember, social distancing and hand washing is still imperative and the mask does NOT change those recommendations. Stay home and stay safe, and if you venture out, stay masked.

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Mask fitting day

Today I moved a step closer to protecting my patients and myself, I was officially fitted for an N95 mask and a CAPR (an advanced powered air purifying respirator for protection against aerosolised and airborne particulates). I left the fitting with one N95 mask with my name on it in a brown lunch bag. I am grateful to have it and grateful that the two hospitals at which I maintain privileges are at last making sure we’ve all been fit. Until today, none of the five ENT docs in my group had been fit at these facilities. That concerned us because we have recently discovered the high rate of COVID19 infections in ENT doctors in China, Italy and Iran. Now we at least each have one mask to get us through 5 encounters (assuming it doesn’t become contaminated). The hospitals do have supplies now, but we’re told they do not have a lot. Reprocessing of masks is also ongoing to try to “recycle” and reuse. I just read that people that will be wearing these masks should NOT wear makeup and lipstick to work as that is the number one reason they cannot be reprocessed. Spread the word to your nursing and physician friends please.

I am praying for the heroic doctors and nurses in New York and around the world who are working untold hours in dangerous situations and watching so many suffer and die. I hope and pray that we will not see this repeated across the country and I again commend your for staying home and beseech you to convince your friends and family to stay home. This virus takes young people too, and sometimes quickly.

On a personal note, one of my relatives is suffering alone in a hospital, on hospice now from what might be COVID19. Even if it isn’t the infectious agent in her pneumonia, it is the cause of her suffering without family. There are visitor restrictions in most hospitals now, and people suffer alone. When we are on the other side of this pandemic, I hope we can once again hug. I miss hugging and I’d like to hug my aunt and tell her I love her and hold her hand…remember that if nothing else moves you to stay home. Dying alone is wrong and you can help prevent that from happening.

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Tough decisions for doctors should make staying home an easy one for you

Medical and ethics professionals across the world are having to make decisions about allocating care and resources during the COVID19 pandemic. Many health systems in the US are crafting policies, even as I write, about whether or not to “code” or resuscitate COVID 19 patients. This is as scary to us physicians as it is to you patients. What can you do about it? Stay home. You are less likely to contract the infection if you practice social distancing and stay home. If you stay home, we are less likely to run out of personal protective equipment, less likely to become infected, and hence less likely to have to make decisions or policies that limit our ability to provide care for everyone. For more information on this topic, read this article from the Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/25/coronavirus-patients-do-not-resucitate/?utm_campaign=9bcfc89836-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_25_12_50&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Global%20Health%20NOW%20Main%20List

Stay home and save lives