Viva Honduras

John went to Honduras for his favorite medical mission in March.  He went all four years in medical school, and he was able to go again this year with the same group from Toledo.  It was delightful.  Here is his report.  
Edited to add:  Some of the pictures below are a touch graphic.  Please be careful if you are, like me, sensitive to yucky medical stuff.

Here's the view from my room the first week.  That's mostly smoke from burning stuff with a little fog.  People cook with wood and burn trash so there's a lot of smoke.

Front of the Hospital in La Esperanza

The ambulance we donated when I was a 3rd year med student.  Well used with 270k miles.

The hallway looking from the ED entrance.  That's the table where ED blood draws are done using gloves for tourniquets.

The ED complete with intern.  It's really more like two office rooms with one exam table each.  No O2, no suction, no bed.  They want to remodel since they recognize the limitations of the current ED.

The other half of the ED room complete with exam table and Barbie curtain for privacy.

Drug reps look the same in any country.

The home behind the hospital women who live out of town move into when they get close to their due date.

Ovarian cyst and ovary. (the little white part in upper right is ovary).  This was taken out of a 17yr old.  I only saw two hondurans cry and it wasn't the machette/hatchet/gun shot wounds it was this girl and another girl that had a ruptured tubal pregnancy.  Did not see a single narcotic used in two weeks.  All tylenol, diclofenac (like ibuprofen), and ibuprofen. Even surgery patients got tylenol.  It was same in Bolivia though I did see narcotics used once there to put an elbow back in

Machete to the hand.

Rural Honduras....typical home.

Bull used in construction of adobe house.  Water hole is where mud for adobe blocks was taken from.

170 water filters pre assembly $4020 worth.

Univ Toledo team.  This was our work station/teachers desk.  We're usually in schools or churches.  Different town each day.

Sweet little 6 year old who has lost his two front teeth.....

.....because they along with a few others have rotted out of his head.  This is where Dave comes in a few years from now.  There was a dentist my first trip as a student in 2005 but hasn't been one since.  Dr. Paat says he hasn't been able to get one to go since then and he was the busiest guy there nonstop pulling teeth.  I wish this picture wasn't common but I'd say about 1/2 the people I saw kids included had at least a couple teeth that were completely rotted out.

Somethings not quite right with that right eye.

It's called ptergium and it's where the conjunctiva because of UV light and dust (irritation) grows over the iris.  I can become problematic if it grows too far.  Treatment is surgical removal.  We gave sunglasses to help with dust and UV light.

It was trial and error with random glasses from a box which included old prescription glasses (like those above) and a bunch of dollar store reading glasses.  I saw several people with cataracts too which glasses help very little and that need to have them removed.

As we were driving Satruday to the R&R location (a beach resort) we came across a three care accident two of which are pictured above.  What lucky people to have a bus full of gringo doctors be amongst the first on the scene.  Amongst whom are the chair of internal medicine at Mayo, the chair of peds at Mayo, a GI doc from Cleveland Clinic (all U. Toledo grads).  The wilderness life support course came in handy as I got a Honduran to cut us some sticks to splint the lady's very obviously dislocated knee (possibly broken too), and her husbands wrist.  An ICU nurse got the IV going on him.  We moved his wife using empty duffle bags since one of the cars (a pickup) involved was leaking diesel all over the road. Eventually we loaded both into a pickup and sent them to the hospital.

Over all the second week I was there which was the week with the team we saw a record 2247 people if you count the two on the highway and the one team member who passed out and was seen in clinic and transported to the hospital but was released shortly afterward.  

A big thanks to Susanne for coming out to take care of the ladies.