Cotabato MEDCAPS

Here are some more pictures of our adventures in Cotabato, PI. This particular day we did numerous surgeries removing sebaceous cysts and lipomas. Everyone thinks that they have cancer, so removing a small cyst can really go a long way in helping them out. they would much rather have a scar than to have the mass. One woman in particular had a lipoma on her neck, and her family said she had a hard time finding a huspand because every man thought she had cancer and didn't want to marry her.

In one picture above I am helping the nurse learn how to inject lidocaine in to the face. She did a good job, but I had to correct her angle or else she may have punctured through into the mouth...no cool points for that.

One woman had a cyst on her head, but was really scared of the pain. I assured her she wouldn't feel a thing and she agreed to the surgery. She felt no pain, we removed the cyst, and she was much happier.

I am curious to know what the infection rate out there was. We did our best to ensure clean instruments and a sterile working environment, but as you can see there were many challenges in front of us. we were basically doing surgery on school tables with limited resources. We only had one set of instruments that needed to be cleaned in between cases. I placed everybody on antibiotics just in case though.

There is a picture of us in zodiacs. That is how we got to 2 medcaps. It was so much fun!

Well we are finally done with all of our medcaps in the Philippines. We are just picking up some leftover gear and people now. After we pick them up, we will be moving over to Vietnam. it looks like I will be on 3 medcap missions in Vietnam which will be very interesting. More to come in the next few days...thanks for stopping by again.