Zouk Surgical

  Whole Family On One Motorbike 
  Originally uploaded by interplast.

My Tho, Vietnam - Hafiz Miraly, pediatrician:  Walking to and from the hospital each day, the streets are a busy maze of motorbikes. The motorbikes often carry families of four, including babies. Crossing the street is an adventure. We’ve quickly learned that the key is to walk at a steady pace, without slowing down or speeding up, and the bikes will avoid us. The city comes to life at about 5 AM daily as everyone comes out for their morning exercise. The markets open and the city is abuzz with activity throughout the sweltering heat of the day and late into night. The people are friendly and always smile as we pass by. The city is actually one of the cleanest I have ever seen in a developing country. As we come to the hospital, many of us will buy a café sua da (ice coffee) from the street vendors to start our day. Then off to see the patients and take them to the O.R. Thus far, this has been an incredible experience and I look forward to more such trips in the future.

Few months back news came in stating, firefighters are more prone to prostate cancer and this time researchers have come out giving another shock to these firefighters, transpiring the fact that firefighting increases firefighters’ vulnerability to coronary heart disease (CHD) by up to 100 times than non-emergency duties. However, this is not for the first time that firefighting has been linked to heart diseases because several studies conducted earlier have also shown that how percentage of patients with heart diseases is growing alarmingly among firefighters. Like-

• In firefighters 50% of deaths results from heart attacks

• Heart Attacks Claim More Firefighters Than Any Other Cause

• Health Inferno: Firefighters’ Greatest Risk May Not Be Fires, But Killer Heart Attacks

However, this study is somewhat more convincing than the studies conducted earlier on this issue because results or conclusions looming out of this study are utterly based on long analysis of statistical studies. In the latest study, experts reviewed the data of the past 11 years, provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency of all deaths on duty on firefighters between 1994 and 2004. Interestingly this data didn’t include those firefighters who linked to the 2001 September 11 terrorist attacks. In the words of Stefanos Kales of Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA states:-

Instead, this is a statistical analysis with several different models that allowed us to estimate duty-specific risks. We think we’ve provided the strongest evidence to date that specific firefighting activities can indeed trigger heart events in susceptible firefighters.

According to an estimate, heart disease accounts for 45 per cent of deaths among the firefighters from the U.S. alone, which indirectly suggests that firefighters are at higher risk of heart diseases. Unfortunately, heart disease is not the only threat for these firefighters but cancer is also getting over them, which confirms the fact that from health point of view firefighters are not safe. Have a look at the increased vulnerability of firefighters to cancer:-

• Firefighter cancer risk ‘higher’

• Firefighters Face Increased Risk For Certain Cancers

• Raised cancer risk in firefighters

On the basis of this study and by ruminating over the previous studies it could he asserted that a great threat is constantly hovering over the health of these firefighters. Therefore, it becomes quite important to bring out more effective as well as preventive methods so that these valiant firefighters may protect their health in the same way as protect others’.

Via: Xinhua Net

  Omar and Social Worker 
  Originally uploaded by interplast.

Cusco, Peru - Sheila Wolfson, coordinator / translator:  Omar, an adorable 7 month old baby, needed a bilateral cleft lip repair. When his parents saw that he was born with this deformity, they left him at the orphanage. The social workers hoped that after his surgery, he might have a chance at being adopted.

  Sheyla waiting for palate surgery 
  Originally uploaded by interplast.

Cusco, Peru - Sheila Wolfson, coordinator / translator:  Sheyla, a child who needed a cleft palate revision (yet could not be treated the year before due to an upper respiratory infection), was accepted for surgery this year.

  Jhon and social worker at orphanage 
  Originally uploaded by interplast.

Cusco, Peru - Sheila Wolfson, coordinator / translator:  On the last day of our stay at the hospital, Rosa Maria (our local invaluable helper) and I took a 20 minute taxi ride to visit the Santa Teresa Orphanage in Cusco. We were eager to see “El Hogar” or The Home, as the children called it.

The orphanage was affiliated with the nunnery and was the home to more than 90 children, many with special needs. In fact, most of the children we saw were severely handicapped, as the healthier children were off at school.

Every year, we operate on children from El Hogar.  Check out the blogs from previous Cusco trips in 2005 and 2006 to see more of this collaborative, mutually beneficial relationship.

Over 30 staff meet the needs of these children, and it was obvious that they received excellent care. A lovely social worker brought several children to the Interplast clinic for evaluation the first week we were in Cusco.

  After The Twin’s Cleft Repair Surgery 
  Originally uploaded by interplast.

My Tho, Vietnam - Tina Cerruti, PACU nurse:  Having three year old twin granddaughters myself, I think it will be even more difficult for her as she gets older and is compared to her twin. Her parents are farmers with three other children at home and would never have been able to afford having have her lip repaired if not for Interplast.

We repaired her cleft lip, and I hope that she will be able to come back and have her palate repaired by Interplast next year.