Good day today. Working with chief resident Dugall Mfilia, a 5th year surgery resident from Zaire. Great resident who is going home after he is done and wants to learn as much as possible before then. We did a couple cases that I have not done before and two that I did for the first time last week.  

The first was an 11 month old child with a flexion contracture of the hand on whom we did a multiple Z-plasty contracture release to correct the deformity, which worked quite well. Fixed an inter-subtrochanteric femur fracture with a distal femoral plate and no fluoro - my second one in a week (and in my life), sequestrectomy of the tibia in a child with a bad tibia fracture non-union and osteomyelitis, femur/tibia ex fix removal/i&d on a patient with osteomyelitis and non-union in both areas and probably needs an amputation, and fixed an ankle fracture dislocation in standard AO fashion, which the residents really liked.

Saw vertebral TB (Potts disease) for the second time in my life, then was asked to see another case that may be the same thing. 

Working with the residents and staff here has been great--they are all extremely motivated to learn new techniques, and kind hearted about teaching me how to treat levels of illness I've never encountered before.

I was sitting with about seven of them today and asked them if any had had malaria before. They all laughed at me, as each has had it multiple times. They take it in stride. I am finishing my two weeks here Friday, and have been truly blessed by the experience. 

I will be back again, hopefully for a longer period, to experience the blessing of working in such a wonderful environment. The medical hardship here is intense, but so is the presence of Christ.

Bob