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. (more…)

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. (more…)