Mission 8 Begins!

We left Wednesday morning for Amman Jordan to undertake our 8th mission trip. Seven prior trips have been to this same location, one included a side trip to Sulamaiyah for a site visit/clinic and one trip to Uganda. To date, we have operated on 61 children from the Middle East and 11 children from Uganda including families from Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Eqypt, and Uganda. There are 12 children on the surgery schedule for this trip which includes 6 children from Iraq. The team members making this trip are the original 6 people who went on the very first trip:
Dr. Mark Turrentine (heart surgeon) Dr. Anne Farrell (pediatric cardiologist), Mike Horner (perfusionist), Becky Clark (O.R. Nurse), Jill Riley (O.R. Nurse), Megan Richards (ICU Nurse).
A lot of planning and preparation goes into each of these trips. Months before we
leave, clinical information is sent from various contacts on children who are in need of heart surgery. Those are reviewed, diagnoses are made, and patients are selected for the potential schedule. We take with us 2 large trunks of medical equipment to use for the care of these kids. Items such as suture, graphs, catheters are gathered from our medical companies and of course funding for the trip is secured. Though only 6 people make the 7000 mile flight from one side of the world to the other, we have many to thank for making it possible:
Rotary international. Gift of Life
Tom Deierlein Foundation (www.tomdeierleinfoundation.com)
Abbott laboratories
W.L. Gore company
Medtronic
Cook medical…Bruce Gingles
Men and women at Cook Medical for constructing the antibiotic coated catheters that were donated to the mission
Skyway Travel, Ginny Fakhouri
Riley Hospital Administration
Operating Room Staff of Riley Hospital (especially those who helped cover Jill)

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