An interdisciplinary Stanford team visited Rwanda in December to operate on about 30 patients ranging in age from 7 to 60 under the sponsorship of Medical Missions for Children (http://www.mmfc.org). For most of the team members it was the second year visiting the East African nation. The group traveled several hours from Kigali, the capital, over dirt roads to the rural village of Gitwe.

[1] From left, faculty anesthesiologist Andrew Patterson, ICU nurse Nicole Cromwell, anesthesia resident Dondee Almazan, and Jung Hong, a pediatric anesthesia fellow at Lake Kivu, Rwanda.

[2] Almazan holds a child awaiting cleft palate repair,

[3] Almazan and Hong in the operating room, and,

[4] Cromwell performs some bubble therapy. "We did at least a dozen thyroidectomies for large goiters, numerous cleft lip repairs, and even a total abdominal hysterectomy," Patterson said. Rwanda's medical infrastructure is being rebuilt following the devastating genocide of the 1990s.