Sunday, April 6, 2014

Ethiopia April 6, 2014

This is my 10th trip to Ethiopia!
Healing the Children came for the first time in October of 2009, and we have been coming twice a year since then.  This time our team has 3 ENT surgeons, 1 ENT resident, 2 Anesthesia residents, 1 nurse anesthetist, an OR nurse, a monitoring specialist, 2 audiologists, the Healing the Children president and myself.  We are from Philadelphia, Reading PA, New Jersey, North Carolina, California and Texas.
The Philadelphia area group was the last to arrive, Saturday night.  We all came on Lufthansa which had a strike of the pilots union which started at midnight on Tuesday night.  We had some moments of panic on Monday afternoon when our flight was on the cancellation list.  Our amazing travel agent was able to find another option for us (which wouldn’t have been as convenient but would have worked), but in the end our flight was one of the first that resumed after the strike.  The airport was surprising quiet on Friday night, as was the Frankfurt airport. 
Our flights were all fine, as were those of the other team members.  One of our bags didn’t make it, so we hope it arrives soon.  We checked about 20 bags between the 8 of us, and three of them were held up in customs.  We hope to get them tomorrow as well.
Our ENT team gave lectures this morning to the Ethiopian ENT residents, others relaxed, I went to church with Dr. Mary, Cure hospital anesthesiologist and her family.  A few of us went to Cure hospital to see patients for the OR tomorrow, other went shopping.  We went to a coffee shop and had dinner in an Italian restaurant in the hotel.  We had a few guests join us for dinner also.
Tomorrow we have 3 ear surgeries scheduled, and clinic also.

Time for bed!

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