A team from Stanford joined other colleagues in December on a medical mission to Gitwe, a rural village in Rwanda. Sponsored by Medical Missions for Children (http://www.mmfc.org), the group traveled several hours over dirt roads from Kigali, Rwanda, the capital of the east African nation, to provide otolaryngology surgeries for children and adults, as well as OB/GYN services, including cesarean section deliveries. Shown from left are Ashwin Murthy, a Stanford undergraduate; Andrew J. “Drew” Patterson, a Stanford ICU attending and associate professor of anesthesia; two Rwandan security guards assigned to the team; Bob Feinstein, an anesthesiologist from St. Louis; and Jung Hong, a Stanford anesthesia resident. Not pictured from the Stanford team was ICU nurse Nicole Cromwell. Rwanda’s medical infrastructure is being rebuilt following the devastating genocide and facilities destruction in the 1990s.

Do you have a picture or report from a recent service trip to an interesting location? We’d like to share them with your colleagues in our publication,
website, and possibly on a hospital display. Send your photos with IDs
and a brief summary of the mission to the editor, goodkind@stanford.edu. (Please query first before sending large picture files.)

PHOTOS: DREW PATTERSON AND STEVE GLOMSTAD (RN/UCSF)