Second Day in the Hospital in the Dominican Republic

Dr. Christopher Hartnick is Professor of Otolaryngology at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Harvard Medical School and the co-founder of Operation Airway in 2007. He is so incredibly fortunate to work together with Dr. Phoebe Yager (the director of the Massachusetts General Hospital for Children’s Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) and Evelyn Zablah, Operation Airway’s Program Director to help plan the multi-disciplinary missions designed towards self-sustainability around the world and to help design and implement the local level clinical trials to improve the quality of life of children with breathing problems around the world, and, perhaps, to help lower pediatric mortality around the world through this work.

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diciembre 10, 2020

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We started the day by rounding on our two patients from the day before who were doing fantastic. Next, we went to discuss the case ahead for the day which was a young man who sustained head trauma in during a car accident and was subsequently intubated and put on breathing machine for 18 days. The tube caused a lot of scarring in his trachea and he has had a trach for the past 4 years.

We were able to open up his airway and place a stent (which Dr. Mirambeaux received from another family in the United States) that will allow his airway to heal.

The hospital does not supply any needed supplies for the physicians. Dr. Mirambeaux orders his trachs from Ebay when he needs them. They do not have nurses who scrub in and assist in the cases. This is performed by the residents.

The critical care team spent the day caring for the patients and learning the culture of the hospital. Everybody at the hospital seemed very receptive to learning about how to care for this type of patients. After the surgery, the anesthesiologist stayed with our patient until he was fully recovered.