Most of our procedures involve repairing cleft lips and cleft palettes, both congenital deformities, and burn reconstruction. These surgeries are ideal, he said, since they require minimal supplies and usually require only a few days of post-operative care. According to Donald Minckler, director of glaucoma services and professor of ophthalmology at the Doheny Eye Institute, ophthalmologic care also travels well because diagnoses are usually accurate, procedures highly directed and the recovery relatively short. Time constraints on post-operative care, as well as shortages of blood products for transfusions, limit the scale of procedures. Occasionally, the physicians and organizations arrange for patients requiring major surgeries to be transported to the United States during recovery.
Physicians also face hardships from a lack of adequate facilities.
The lights returned after a few minutes, but then the bulb over the operating table shattered, raining shards of glass onto the patient. Fortunately, the child was already under anesthesia. I told myself that if I got through that experience, I could get through any operation. Another challenge to practicing abroad is the vagaries of regional politics - as Alfredo Sadun, professor of ophthalmology and neurosurgery, learned on a trip to Cuba. A mysterious epidemic descended on that island nation in the early 1990s, causing nearly 30,000 people to lose their sight.