Dr. Asheema Pruthi (EVMS ENT) - Tanzania, 2024
From May 20th to 25, 2024, I was fortunate enough to join the Healing the Children team on a humanitarian trip to Mwanza, Tanzania with my attending, William Dougherty, MD. We were joined by otolaryngologists from Duke and UCLA. Our visiting team consisted of nurses, speech language pathologists, pediatricians, anesthesiologists, surgeons and resident surgeons. We partnered with local surgeons, anesthesiology providers, medical students, nurses, and speech language pathologists. We held educational conferences throughout the week in addition to hands-on teaching with surgeons, anesthesiologists, and nurses.
Our team cared for 55 patients, including 30 patients who underwent surgical procedures. The majority of our operations were cleft lip and palate revisions for malpositioned, hypertrophic scars or nasoalveolar fistulas. Many of these patients had existing speech and swallow challenges that prompted our revision surgery. We were fortunate to have two American speech therapists join our team.
During the week, our speech pathologists worked closely with the local speech therapist, Adam. They hosted over 60 counseling sessions, working closely with patients pre-operatively and post-operatively. Although our trip primarily focused on management of cleft lip and palate patients, our team did a wide range of ENT and facial plastic surgeries including thyroidectomies, sinus surgery, scar revisions, and microtia repairs.
Throughout the week, I was continuously amazed at the immense appreciation from the patients, staff, and local team. Although it was not easy to communicate with our patients due to the language barrier, their appreciation and gratitude was palpable. Many surgical trainees traveled multiple hours to learn and collaborate with our team this week. The residents and fellows were hospitable, always assisting with obtaining necessary supplies and guiding us around the hospital to visit the in-patients. We were amazed at the number of observers joining each of our procedures, each with immense eagerness to learn from our team.
I am currently a PGY-3 otolaryngology resident at Macon & Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences at Old Dominion University. This was my first medical humanitarian trip and will definitely not be my last. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to collaborate and operate with local surgeons in the management of challenging patients. The new friendships I made with local trainees and surgeons in and out of the operating room is something I will never forget.