CAMTA sees 140 patients at the Tierra Nueva!

Today we arrived at the Tierra Nueva bright and early for our clinic. The OR staff set up the theatres while surgeons and translators got to work in the clinic. We saw our first patient at 0930h but it wasn't an facile morning. We worked hard to get more efficient with the flow of patients. By the afternoon we had a great rhythm although we were a little short of translators since the local school kids had to leave at about noon. By the time the day was over we saw ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY PATIENTS! This is the most patients we've ever seen in one clinic. We didn't wrap our clinic until about 2100h Sunday evening.The pediatric surgeons are so very pleased to have two FULL weeks of pediatric surgery all organized. The first child tomorrow is having a bilateral pelvic osteotomy and a left femoral osteotomy as well. That's a big case!!

Sammy Ruiz had brought some amazing steel tie wraps to the warehouse. Here's Greg O'Connor using a surgical instrument (pediatric pin cutter) to remove them from the prostheses boxes.

During the clinic Eileen ran around and got pictures of the kids and their parents. Someone kindly took a picture of her with this little monkey. He introduced himself to Eileen with a very English “HELLO”. Then he kept bringing his friends for more pictures.

This poor little thing got so upset later in the day. Here her Mom, who wasn't much happier trys to comfort her.

The scrubs are all lined up ready for Monday morning. Watch the blog for more pictures and video of the patients! The kids are so so cute. The adults are so so very grateful.

The applause this morning as we entered the Tierra Nueva waiting area was quite emotional for some of the new CAMTA team members.