Four years ago, a young girl named Angie came to Las Obras with a unique and serious problem. She had recently been in a car accident and sustained a serious head injury. To save her life, local doctors had installed a tracheal tube in her throat and put her on a ventilator. However, the tube that had originally been installed was far too large. This blunder had caused a scar to form in her airway—a problem that was diagnosed by MMF doctors at Las Obras four years ago.
In order to help Angie, an extremely complex surgery is necessary—one that MMF doctors may not actually be able to accomplish, given the time allotted and resources at hand. Angie requires a long, complicated operation to totally reconstruct her airway—one that requires multiple follow-up procedures, which can continue for many months after the initial surgery.
Dr. Pamela, one of the MDs who initially saw Angie in the summer of 2007, has been working with her father’s employer for three years in order to figure out a way to accomplish this expensive and time-consuming operation. However, as of yet, no solution has been reached.
Yesterday Angie returned to Las Obras in the hopes of making an appointment with a team from Cuba to see if they might be able to help her. However, while she was in the hallway, she happened to notice Dr. Pamela and after an excited reintroduction, asked to be seen by her.
The first time Dr. Pamela saw Angie, she only had one tracheostomy tube and her family had been not taught how to properly care for it. The doctors printed off information from the Children’s Mercy Hospital website, and Dr. Pamela did Tracheostomy teaching, teaching Angie’s family how to care for and change the tube. She was also able to convince a medical company from the US to ship two other tracheostomy tubes to the family.
Although she has been in correspondence with the father’s wealthy employer, until yesterday she had not seen Angie for years. When he learned that Dr. Pamela was in Guatemala her father’s employer drove to Antigua from Guatemala City to meet with her face-to-face and tried to work out a solution to the problem. However, as of yet, the complex scenario remains unsolved.
We'll keep up with Angie's story and update with developments as we can.
So glad you were able to reconnect with your patient! Now, if only we can figure out how to help her more! First Hand?????
Posted by: Stephanie Sale | July 01, 2011 at 11:49 AM
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Posted by: Study abroad scholarships | July 03, 2011 at 11:15 PM