Bhutan is a landlocked nation in South Asia, located on the eastern end of the Himalaya Mountains. The country has limited health care services and physicians to meet the medical and surgical needs of its population. Surgicorps medical and non-medical volunteers work with the Bhutanese medical professionals to provide surgical services and share knowledge to help improve medical services in this mountain kingdom. [Read more…] about Bhutan: April 10-22, 2009
Mangnezig Mollel
We are the brothers of Mangnezig. We are from the Masaii Tribe and our family raises cattle. Our family was herding our cattle across a stream during the monsoon. The fast water carried away one of our young cows. Mangnezig grabbed the cow by the tail to try and save it, but the cow and our brother were carried down stream. Our brother is very strong and he did not let go. When we found him, the cow was dead; both of Mangnezig’s arms were broken and most of the skin was missing from his back and legs. [Read more…] about Mangnezig Mollel
Manamedoli Shandala
My name is Nashel, I am from “Mana’s” village and I brought “Mana” to the clinic to see if the American doctors could fix her hands. Mana’s hands and face were burned very badly when the thatched roof of her family’s hut caught on fire and collapsed into the house. [Read more…] about Manamedoli Shandala
Vandin Sowers
10 years ago…She lurched into the public health clinic in Codo, Brazil on two grotesquely deformed legs. She was six years old and wore only underpants. Dr. Jack Demos and Dr. Vincent Silvaggio, surgeons on a medical mission to Brazil, knew immediately that they could not treat her in Codo. She would have to return home. [Read more…] about Vandin Sowers
Tandin Dorji
This irrepressible five year old was smiling and racing around the Paro hospital in Bhutan despite the fact that a wildcat had clawed off his nose when he was seven months old. He lives with his parents who tend a herd of 100 yak. Home is a tent in the Himalayas at 11,000 feet elevation. One day, after giving Tandin a bath, his mother left him in the tent while she went out to wash some clothes. A wildcat the size of a large dog crept in and mauled the baby. Returning to the tent, his mother discovered what had happened, bundled up Tandin and, along with her husband, made the three day trip by horseback to the Thimphu Hospital in the capital city where the baby was given emergency care. [Read more…] about Tandin Dorji