Clinic day, the day before our first surgeries, the day we screen potential patients for surgery the day of organized chaos.
This is when those with the mission experience take charge and it shows. To an outsider it may seem like chaos but as a team member assigned a position it runs like a well oiled machine. Carolyn Walchak, RN and Head Nurse on this Tacna mission and with 10 Rotaplast missions behind her surely knows how to run this ship.
We met at 7:00 a.m. at the hospital passing a long line of patients that looked as if they had been waiting for a long time. We spent an hour setting up our stations and next thing we knew we were on our way taking pictures of potential patients, moving them through to pediatrics for physicals and then on to specialty doctors for a consultation depending on their medical circumstances.
We screened 113 children and adults. Saw a lot of children that needed lip and palate revisions and approximately 1/3 of the people we saw were burn patients.
We also saw people with an assortment of deformities. We only saw one primary cleft lip.
Rotaplast has been to Tacna 4 times, it will be interesting to see if any children are returning for revisions from any of our previous missions.
The initial schedule is set and we’re ready to go.
