Kenya February 2011

Tomorrow we depart for Kenya.  The hardest part about leaving, as always, is leaving Kido behind.  Thankfully, she will be in good hands at home with our housesitter/petsitter.  And as on our last trip, we will be able to spy on her via "kidocam" on our iPhones.

There will be 10 of us on this trip:

Susan Cordes (ENT)

Ed Weisberger (ENT)

Mike Moore (ENT)

*Aaron Moberly (ENT Resident)

Diana Sullivan (nurse)

Heather Cain (nurse)

*Leslie Helfert (Anaesthesiologist Resident, wife of Mike)

*Betsy Moberly (ER Physician, wife of Aaron)

Donna Weisberger (former teacher, wife of Ed)

Kyle Cordes (travel agent, mr. fixit, phone guy, blogger, husband of Susan)

(*) represents Kenya rookie status

The surgeons and nurses will be working with counterparts at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) in Eldoret, Kenya.  The focus of this trip is to work with the Kenyan ENTs to screen and operate on thyroid patients (goiters) and to help train medical students.  The Kenyan ENT's have been pre-screening patients and scheduling them for surgery in the coming days.

Leslie is on a training rotation and arrived a couple weeks ago.  Diana left a week ago as she wanted more time to observe and teach before the big group arrives.  The rest of us depart tomorrow (Friday) and will arrive in Nairobi Saturday night.  We will spend the night in Nairobi and then fly up to Eldoret on Sunday morning.  The surgeons will go to clinic at noon to screen/review the patients scheduled for surgery on Monday.  And it will be game on!

Susan and Heather have been making requests for equipment and supplies from various medical supply companies, mostly with pretty good success.  (See previous entry on Olympus.)  They have also been saving unused supplies from home that otherwise would have been discarded.  Susan and I have packed an extra 50 pound suitcase for each traveler to take, since we each are allowed two such bags on international flights.  When we get to Nairobi, we are restricted to one bag for our flight to Eldoret, so we are having our excess luggage trucked to Eldoret.  It should arrive sometime Sunday afternoon.

Stay tuned for regular updates and more info...