Pediatric Heart Surgery in Uganda: Where's my ASCOM

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Where's my ASCOM

Call room Mulago style

I just completed my first call night. I have some news for all of you back home. Strangely enough - life goes on without the ASCOM. I actually was able to take call and communicate with the nurses without a pager or a phone - weird. Other random things I discovered last night:

I kinda dig blogging, but don't know if I am cool enough to Twitter

No ice in the Mulago hospital

Colola means cough in Lugandan

Malaria preps here come back quicker than RSV swabs

blood gas results can take less than 2 minutes

Ugandan Mountain Dew is delicious

All is not perfect in Uganda though - I slept (~2 hours) in a top bunk designed for someone 5 feet tall with a mosquito net....no flat screen TV's, and no private bathrooms.

Rollin' on

Klugs

1 comment:

Heart Surgery in Uganda said...: This is so cool!!! Keep posting!
Love,
Your Sista', MO; April 30, 2009 at 10:11 PM

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Uganda Heart Project Mission

Our mission is to save the lives of children with life threatening heart conditions. Congenital heart defects are the most common birth defect, occurring in 1% of all births. With surgery or catheterization, most have a normal life expectancy and quality of life. Without treatment, they will become progressively sicker; many will die before age 5.

With the support of several donors including the Larry King Cardiac Foundation, Samaritan’s Purse Children’s Heart Project and Gift of Life International, Dr. Craig Sable has formed a strong collaboration with Mulago Hospital, the main teaching hospital in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, where the first open heart surgeries were performed in 2007. Over 50 children have traveled to North America for procedures. Unfortunately, there are over 5,000 children in Uganda and over 5 million world-wide who have treatable heart conditions but no access to care. While expensive, in almost all cases the result is a healthy child with a full life expectancy and no need for medications.

Our goal is to fund care of these children in the U.S., continue to lead missions to Uganda, and ultimately build a sustainable cardiac surgery center in Kampala through technology and ongoing education. No child with a treatable heart condition should die because of a lack of access to care.

The families and children are so thankful for the work we are doing and their gratitude is the best reward we can possibly receive. A parent or legal guardian of each of the children shown on this blog has signed a legal consent form that authorizes us to be able to display their pictures and names on this blog and other internet sites.