I've come to rely on my breakfast photos as daily bookmarks... More of the same this morning. Note the beverages in the top right corner: a super-watered down Tang-like beverage (perhaps the Chinese version of VitaminWater?), and something vaguely resembling warm milk (hopefully not melamine).
Morning rounds on the first floor. That's Jeff, on the left, one of the plastic surgeons on the team, who brought a little bit of Hawaii flavor to China. Azriel, one of our charming translators, on the right. In between them: one of those "I love you" balloons ruthlessly hawked outside the hospital. Someone must have fallen for it.
As you travel through China, you notice "the squat" is the favored position of the people. Anytime, anywhere. Old people, young ones. I guess it's in the genes.All right, fair warning. A few surgical-themed photos coming up.
This is the cleft palate of a little girl, almost 3 years old. A little more ground to cover here, than the previous day's case.
This was a challenge, but everything came together - after deploying nearly every trick in the book.
My little patient in recovery.Apparently at the First People's Hospital of Changde, there is no recovery room. The local anesthesiologists wake up the patients in their ORs, recover them on the operating room table, and transport them directly from the OR to their beds on the wards.
Admittedly, this wasn't what any of us Americans were used to, and following the Changde custom would slow down our surgical day's progress considerably. Besides, our team included some talented nurses who were itching to get to work.
We were able to commandeer an empty OR and transform it into our PACU. Hats off to our recovery nurses and all the caretakers for working their magic. You can see a little "MacGyvering" in action in the photo above: a plastic drinking cup works double duty as an oxygen blow-by.
The little girl, doing well the day after surgery.
At work in the OR. This photo reminds me a little of the spirit of Rembrandt's The Anatomy Lecture of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp.
Back on the patient ward, with a feisty little guy.
He was so hungry, he wasn't letting anything get in his way.
Success!
Speaking of hungry, our group couldn't be called slackers in the appetite department, either.Our friend Pan took us to another restaurant for dinner, this one famous for their duck. Our translators and guides were so incredible and very proud of their wonderful city; we were taken only to "the best" and the "most famous" dining spots in town.
Prep work in the restaurant.
Mmm. Digging in to the hot duck dish. Left to right: Pan, Alex, Charles.
Top left: spicy duck in the hot pot. Right: mung bean "tofu" - very soft cubes with a mild, herby flavor.
Bottom left: bean thread noodles. Bottom right: braised cauliflower.
After dinner, we convinced our young local guides to take us to KTV.For those of you unfamiliar with KTV, it's karaoke. But you haven't really experienced karaoke unless you've been to KTV in Asia. Private rooms, so you can privately embarrass yourself in front of all your friends. It's wild.
This particular place was called "Greek Myths" - you can sort of make out the opulent theme in the double-wide room we got. Gilt this and that, fake columns and ancient styled busts. Right, and the very serious karaoke machine - complete with two mikes, two projection screens, disco lights, and an eardrum-blasting sound system.
Bless his heart, Pan was not a big fan of KTV, as you can see in the photo above. But he did sing a tune or two as the night went on...
A few of our translators, belting out Chinese pop songs. With the mike on the left, Nancy; on the right, Carrie.
By the end of the evening, I was convinced that Alfred was not who he said he was. He was actually a Hong Kong pop star masquerading as a do-gooder oral/maxillofacial surgeon. Maggie was no slouch, either; she did a very impressive cover of this Jay Chou "classic":
And this gentleman, well, he tore it up. Not just singing, but a full dance routine, and such passion! You couldn't pry the mike out of his fingers.
