Challenges, successes mark second Ghana trip

(Children's surgeon Francis Fynn-Thompson wrote the following entry on March 17, on the plane on the way home from Ghana)

We are now 30,000 feet above the Atlantic and on our way back to New York from Accra. Another mission is behind us and I now have the next 11 hours to reflect on the events of the past week. It is a safe bet that I will not be able to truly put into words how proud I am of the work that we did screening over 100 children and then caring for the 11 children that we operated on this past week. There was an increased complexity of operative cases, many more difficult decisions to be made and new, unanticipated challenges to overcome. But despite all of that, the last of our patients will be discharged tomorrow and I expect them all to go on to lead healthy, productive lives. While that may seem like an obvious expectation that any of us would have for our children, it is certainly not one that any Ghanaian parent takes for granted, especially if their children have heart disease.

But this mission is also about much more that just taking care of individual patients. Along the way, we shared the collective wisdom and experience of our entire team with our Ghanaian colleagues and I think we all feel that they have continued to demonstrate a great enthusiasm as well as some appreciable progress toward being able to provide this type of care themselves. That is ultimately what I hope will be the legacy of our missions and what will make all the hard work and personal sacrifice absolutely worth it. In return, I think I speak for our entire team when I say that our experiences in Ghana continue to invigorate our spirits and make us appreciate even more the environment that we are so fortunate to work in.

As I was last October after the first trip, I feel so fortunate to be part of this incredible team of professionals who again represented the very best that Children’s and the MGH have to offer. Our preparedness and ability to overcome obstacles in an unfamiliar environment is a credit to the expertise and experience of our entire team. In particular I would like to again thank Bev, Judy and Christine, whose attention to detail really made all of this possible. THANK YOU…..

Finally, thank you Matt for creating and maintaining this remarkable web site. I think it has allowed our coworkers, families and friends to have a window into our mission and share this journey with us through words and pictures. I know it has been great gift to them all.

Francis Fynn-Thompson, MD