The Northeast and Northern California Chapters of Healing the Children recently completed their fourth annual cleft lip and palate mission to Ica, Peru.
In partnership with the AAFPRS Foundation’s FACE TO FACE Program, the 31-person mission team was led for the fourth year by Dr. Evan Ransom, an ABFPRS certified facial plastic surgeon from San Francisco, CA and Dr. Joseph Rousso, MD, FACS, an ABFPRS certified facial plastic surgeon from the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary. Additional surgical staff included Augustine Moscatello MD, an otolaryngologist practicing in Westchester, NY, Jordan Virbalas, MD a pediatric otolaryngologist practicing in Oakland, CA, Norman Chan, MD a fellow of facial plastic and reconstructive surgery at Mt. Sinai hospital in New York, NY and Sean Alemi MD, a fourth year otolaryngology resident from the University of California, San Francisco. Anesthesia care was provided by a stellar group from Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth, TX.
As in years past, the team began their mission by being enthusiastically greeted by a waiting room full of families and their children, some of who traveled up to 48 hours to reach The Hospital Regional de Ica. With the assistance of pediatricians, speech and language pathologists, anesthesiologists, nursing staff and several local medical student volunteers, the team screened a record number 128 patients this year.
From this group, the surgical team successfully completed 68 operations during the week – highlighted by 27 primary cleft lip repairs, 23 cleft palate repairs, 4 frenuloplasties, one cleft rhinoplasty, one first stage microtia repair, and a second stage microtia repair on a follow up patient the on whom the team had performed a primary repair the preceding year.
In addition, the speech and language pathology team was able to work with a large group of previously-repaired patients, as well as children from the community with other oral and speech issues.
The team is already planning for next year, with ongoing efforts to expand patient recruitment and surgical care during the week.
