LEADING THE WAY
The chief of surgery and his chief resident started an
experiment. On one floor of their hospital they both picked up pieces of
litter on the floor. On another they made rounds as usual. In a few days
the first floor had no litter and was much cleaner, as the staff seemed to
take more pride the their floor. The second floor continued on as usual.
As doctors we are watched and people tend to follow our lead. When we give
our time, energy, and monies other people tend to follow.
COLOSSAL COLON VISITS SEATTLE
Visitors to Seattle Center in July (9th-12th) saw an unusual tent in the
parking lot across the street. The display inside was even more usual!!
This was the temporary home of the “COLOSSAL COLON”, a 40 foot long by 4
foot diameter plywood and Styrofoam model of the human colon. Visitors
could actually crawl through the “colon” and get an ”inside out” view of a
human colon, complete with simulated polyps, ulcers of ulcerative colitis
and Crohn’s disease and both early and late colon cancers. The less
adventurous could view the lesions via wall cut outs.
The display, the brainchild of Molly McMaster a 26 year old colon cancer
survivor, is dedicated to her friend, Amanda Sherwood Roberts, who died of
colon cancer at 27. After finding that she had terminal colon cancer
Amanda dedicated herself to educating others that colorectal cancer is
preventable, treatable and beatable. She encouraged everyone she contacted
to get screened.
In addition to the colossal colon model the display also had 9 other
interactive education stations, including a state of the art Olympus 160
colonoscope and a colonoscopy-training model with a life size and very
realistic colon model. This station was usually staffed by a cancer
survivor who had also “survived” several colonoscopies, or a doctor with
extensive experience in colonoscopy. Dr. Green talked to well over a
hundred visitors during his 3-hour shift on Saturday, July 12. It was
quite interesting to hear the discussions that ensued between patients who
had previously had colonoscopy and other visitors!!
A virtual tour will soon be available at:
http://www.colossalcolon.com. |
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CHILDREN OF THE NATIONS MEDICAL CLINIC
IN DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Many of you are familiar with the work of Children of the Nations (COTN)
in Dominican Republic, Sierra Leone and Malawi. Some of you have actually
been there with COTN and some are already active supporters. Thank You!!
For the others, COTN is a Silverdale based Christian mission organization
focused on serving underserved or orphaned
children in third world nations.
President Chris Clark grew up in the mission field in Africa and started
COTN with his wife, Debbie, after a visit to the Sierra Leone, the land of
his youth showed them the huge number or orphans from the civil war. Along
the way COTN also started to support 3 extremely poor villages in the
southwestern part of Dominican Republic. COTN has schools and feeding
programs in the villages.
After 5 years of work with the children, the parents are now seeing hope
that their children can have better lives and are actively working with
COTN to build school buildings and staff programs. For 5 years COTN has
been sending 1-2 medical/dental teams per year to DR for 1 week at a time
to care for the children in the villages and their families. There is no
intensive care unit in the province. One ENT doctor is available for the
500,000 residents of the area. The government hospital is constantly short
on supplies and much of the equipment in the operating room is from COTN.
While the intermittent medical/dental team visits have been helpful, the
need for ongoing medical care and preventive care really outstrips these
visits. One of the dentists concluded that the children in the three
villages could easily keep a dentist busy for 40+ weeks a year. For these
reasons COTN has started construction on our own medical clinic. This will
provide space for our 2 Dominican physicians working with our villages.
There will be 2 sterile operating rooms, a procedure room, a dental suite
and a full recovery room.
Much of the equipment for the clinic has been donated already, such as
operating room lights and anesthesia machines. About half of the $60,000
needed for construction has been received. Some expensive equipment, such
as electrocautery units (Bovie machines) and oxygen saturation monitors
(pulse Ox) need to be purchased. Financial donations can be made through
the COTN website at www.cotni.org.
Medical equipment and supplies can also be donated {call (360) 698-7227}.
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Kitsap ColoRectal Surgery, Johnny B. Green, MD, FACS, FASCRS
Eastwood Building, 2528 Wheaton Way, #103, Bremerton, WA 98310
Voice:
(360) 377-4717 -- Fax: (360) 377-4134
www.kitsapcolorectal.com
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