Thursday, first day of surgery. Harmeet, the anesthesiologist from UC Davis Med Center, briefed the entire group on all the protocols to be followed for the next three weeks. By 8 am the three operating rooms were ready to go, and three patients were in pre-op, dressed in skimpy gauze wrap, and one by one mothers gave up their babies to OR nurses for surgery. Each child gets wrapped in a beautiful quilt made by ladies in Maine. These quilts go home with the children. Cleft lips, cleft palates, fistulas, and burns are being repaired in 1- 2 hours and today 13 children have been under the knife. Those of us that are new to this (mostly the Rotarians) are fumblers but we are eager and ready to do anything and everything we can do to help. Its quite an organized system. Tomorrow we will start earlier and probably get through more surgeries. Yesterdays heros were the medical records folks, and today we take our hats off to our medical leaders… 4 surgeons, 3 OR nurses, 2 anesthesiologists, and 2 post-op nurses. They have set the tone and are training the rest of us. Soon we will be a well-oiled machine! 
