14 June 2026 – Sunday – First Day of Clinic

We started out with the usual wonderful buffet breakfast followed by a short meeting to introduce the teams. We walked the few blocks to the hospital where we shot the traditional team photo. Then orientation by the OR staff and a video completed our morning start. 

Clinic began around 9:30. Usually we begin to see patients quickly but the hospital set up patients who were returning for a post operative check. They did not need to be seen by anesthesia. They tried sending new patients for us to evaluate but again there is no reason to see a patient who hasn’t been evaluated as a surgical candidate. So I sat with my translator Pam until 11:30 when we began to see patients planned for this week’s schedule. Pam is fully bilingual and we had met before so we had a very nice day together. Her fiancé is Paul who is a surgeon from Guatemala who works with us. Pam has a good working knowledge of some of our procedures as well as the ability to understand what we need to know. We had a great day together. 

We saw many new patients and some returning patients for a second part of their procedure. I even saw a patient at the end of the day  who was coming for a post operative check a year after her surgery. It is so rewarding to recognize the patients and have them recognize me after a year. It’s a rare event in the US to be remembered by a patient.

The day ended around 4:30.  It had been raining hard but the rain stopped before I left the hospital. I returned to the hotel to meet Margaret and make dinner plans. We ate at a wonderful restaurant 2blocks from the hotel. Antigua has lots of fun places to eat. 

Tomorrow we walk to the hospital at 7 am. It will be a long day. But it’s such a great team and a great mission so it’s all worthwhile.