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Pediatric Orthopedic Project, Inc.

POP is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving pediatric orthopedic care in the developing world through surgical mission trips, the education of local medical staff, and hospital facility improvements.

POP Happenings Blog

POP will once again be blogging this year during our mission trip. Please join us on our journey and see your donations in action!

Thank you for your support!

The Mission Team

Mission 5 Day 2 – March 2016

Mission 5 Day 2 – March 2016

March 15, 2016 by popstl Leave a Comment

Our day in a nutshell:

Our day began with no water in the entire hospital and ended with the news that our X-ray machine was broken!! In between, we ran like a well-oiled machine! A successful surgery, medical and teaching lectures, painting done in the cast room and OR Ward, water issue fixed, a solution to our broken X-ray machine was provided, and a patient home visit was accomplished. Special bonus was that our previous patient has become a student nurse and came to the ICU to shadow our team today! Wonderful day despite our challenges!

Rico's first lecture
We start each day at the hospital at 6:30am and begin with a lecture for the hospital doctors. Here we have Dr. Enrico Stazzone giving grand round lecture to the ortho residents on the classification of scoliosis. Dr. Stazzone is POP’s co-founder and is an orthopedic surgeon in St. Louis. His Spanish has improved and he can deliver most of the lecture in Spanish.

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Karina, 16 awaiting surgery with her POP bear. She named him Jorge.

Karina's curvature
Her curvature. We can’t wait to show you her After photograph!

DG with biologics donations Cropped
Thank you for the donations of biologics!

Melissa former patient now nurse Cropped
Our patient from 2 years ago, Melissa who is studying to be a nurse joined our POP team during this mission as a student nurse! Here she learns about the post-op care that scoliosis patients receive from ICU Nurse Beth Seebeck and ICU Physician Dr. Phil Oren. This is a first for POP that a former patient aspires to join us! Talk about giving back!

Jenny and Melissa
ICU nurse Jenny Felber teaching our former scoliosis patient Melissa some basics of post op care.

Cards from Kids back home Cropped
Thank you children of Immaculate Conception School for your lovely, thoughtful, and colorful get well cards! They adorn the walls of our ICU and will be one of the first images seen by our patients when they awaken from having surgery.

Ann Rosen painting Cropped
Ann Rosen painting the orthopedic recovery ward. Her father volunteered last year and helped to repair the sink in the OR. Giving back runs in the family! Ann is a college student at UCSB and is minoring in Spanish. She was also helpful in translating conversation between volunteers and patients and their families.

Yve's flowers Cropped
Yvette López Adams, Director of Development and Operations paints beautiful flowers on the walls of the orthopedic recovery wing on the wall opposite Ann’s rainbow.

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Kelly Williams OR RN gives nursing lecture to Nurses of the Children’s Hospital in Santiago. The topic is pre surgery preparation and sterilization.

Karina_sleeps comfortably Cropped
Our first successful scoliosis surgery of this mission trip completed! Karina is in the Pediatric ICU sleeping comfortably.

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This is what a typical home is like of our patients. Inside the green home we interviewed our patient for tomorrow. She is a 12 year old girl who is teased about having a crooked spine and has pain from her scoliosis. Her mom is a single mother as her dad died last month!

Laisha and mom Cropped
Our patient Laisha (right) dreams of growing up to be a pediatrician.

Laisha pre-op Cropped
On arrival to the hospital Dr. Oren examines Laisha. She will stay over-night and have surgery tomorrow morning. She asked if she will still be able to dance after her surgery. The answer is a resounding “Yes! You will be able to dance ballet, salsa or any dance you want.”

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Here POP doctors collaborate to review Laisha’s x-rays the night before while meeting with her and her mother. A truly diverse and inclusive team work together to help those in need! Here we see (from left to right) Brian Ho- Anesthesiologist Assistant, Dr. Enrico Stazzone – POP co-founder, Dr. Madelyn Stazzone-POP co-founder, and Dr. Miguel Luna of Santiago. In the background, Dr. Oren-ICU Intensivist and Dr. Nigro-Anesthesiologist speak with mom and patient.

Blog

Mission 5 Day 1 – March 2016

Mission 5 Day 1 – March 2016

March 15, 2016 by popstl Leave a Comment

POP just completed it’s 5th Medical and Educational mission trip to Santiago, Dominican Republic and treated 7 children, 6 with scoliosis, and took on our first trauma patient – a 17 year old boy with a spinal fracture due to a motorcycle accident. We also held 8 lectures, 4 for the doctors and 4 for the nursing staff. Despite some challenges, we were also able to give a little love back to the hospital. We blogged about our trip live on Facebook, but you can read all about our journey in this blog recap that follows each day. Thank you to our many donors for your support. Without you, this trip would not be possible.

Day 1 Recap:

Today (3/6/16) was our prep day. We all assessed our work areas to ensure we had what we needed for our first surgical case tomorrow. We readied the OR, ICU and discussed plans for the cast room renovation. (We had trouble connecting to WiFi in the hospital so we will blog when we can.)

Challenges: Our large shipment of medical supplies that we were expecting to arrive during the week will not be delivered until after our mission. We will need to work around that expectation, but we can improvise!

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The POP team 2016 on arrival at Hospital Infantil Regional Universitario Dr. Arturo Grullón. The suitcases you see here, do not contain our personal belongings. Rather, they contain the many supplies needed at the hospital.

Shopping trip items in van Cropped
We stopped on the way to hospital to purchase fans as there is no air conditioning in our unit. Today it was extremely hot and the fans will keep the patients and volunteers cool. We also bought pillows for the kids, hospital gowns, drinks and more for the kids – thank you to our donors for making this possible!

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A welcome sign for us and our 5th medical mission.

Taking Items to OR Cropped
The 2016 POP team on arrival at the Hospital Infantil Regional Universitario Dr. Arturo Grullón. This is what we bring with us in suitcases: medical supplies and surgical instruments (for each surgery we bring all of the rods and screws needed to straighten the curved spine of a child with scoliosis, bone marrow putty, and more), blankets, pillow cases, teddy bears, items to help the patients feel like themselves again (combs, brushes, etc), coloring books, board games, movies, portable DVD players, hand sanitizer, lotion, and basic snacks for the volunteers all thanks to the many donations of our generous supporters.

Beth with blankets Cropped
While POP is a non-denominational organization, we are an inclusive organization and have supporters and volunteers from all backgrounds. These are prayer blankets made by 4th graders at Immaculate Conception school in Missouri! Thank you to the children who made these! Thank you to our ICU nurse Elizabeth Seebeck for coordinating these items!

Carter Donatated blankets Cropped
Blankets for our patients arrived from our Ambassador Michele Carter. They are set on the beds ready to use! The hospital doesn’t have blankets and so families must bring what they need. POP tries to help, and we can with generous donations like these!

Bed's all made with Pillow Cropped
Beds are set with pillow cases donated by a St. Louis area Brownie troop and bed covering (for mid mattress) hand made by Sandy Hamm. Thank you Sandy! Pillows are purchased locally by POP, thanks to donations made on our Web site.

Pre-surgery inventory Cropped
POP volunteers ICU Nurse Beth and Anesthesiology team Dr. Rich Nigro and Assistant Brian Ho team up to take medication inventory for tomorrow’s first surgery. Beth has been with us on every mission!

Yve & the goody bags Cropped
Yvette López Adams, our Director of Development and Operations, was able to get many items donated, from medical supplies to goody bags full of fun things for our patients to enjoy. Thanks Yvette and thanks to our many donors!

OR ready for Day 1 Cropped
Our operating room is ready for tomorrow morning and POP’s first patient of Mission #5.

Street Scene
This is a street scene on our bus ride to the hospital.

Blog

Day 7:Our Last Day

March 15, 2015 by popstl

Our last day was bitter Sweet! We completed  our last surgery and received our sterilization machine (autoclave) delivery to the hospital. It was held  up in customs and we were thankful to have help from the Rotary club of Santiago to release it out of customs. We also held  nursing and physician conferences. We held a press conference with the DR news which will air there in a few days. During the press conference we also had a reunion of the patients from previous years. It was a inspirational to see how the surgery improved their lives both physically and emotionally. The patients from last year all keep in touch and are good friends. A few of the previous year’s patients came up to the ICU to visit our current patients. They held their hands, showed them their scars, applied lip balm on lips and offered their support. We heard from a few patients that they now because they were healed want to help others and become nurses and surgeons. One young woman is becoming a nurse and wants to work at the same hospital where we do our mission to work with us. She was interviewed by our journalist that joined our trip. Our journalist will create a three part series on our mission that will air on Fox News. Please stay tuned.  In the evening we were invited to the home of one of the ladies who is in the volunteer office at the hospital. We all enjoyed the paella! We danced and sang kerokee and had a wonderful time with the Dominican team. We had a very successful mission 2015. We accomplished 9 successful surgeries, redecorated the family waiting rooms, completed our teaching lectures and all of the moments will forever be in our hearts. We will be sharing these moments with you after our blog on on website and social media. Thank you all for coming with us on our journey. We will hope you enjoyed reading our blog and that you will see why we do what we do. Thank you for your support and for coming on our trip with us. 



Sincerely,

POP MissionTeam 2015

Blog Tagged: Mission Trip

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POP is Unique



POP has a unique five arm model. POP seeks to improve orthopedic care not only by annual surgical missions but also by educating local doctors and nurses so that they can pay it forward to their communities; equipping the archaic hospital with necessary equipment, supplies and renovations; sponsoring children with orthopedic conditions that need non-surgical treatment and collaborating with other organizations to bring children with complex orthopedic conditions to the United States for treatment.

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