Sohag, Egypt: Wrapping Up the Mission
Though the team has left Egypt the goodwill is still reverberating from this visit. After the majority of the team, led by Mission Director Michael Fish, had left, seven Rotaplast volunteers stayed behind to take a tour down the Nile. Dr. Sherif took this opportunity to have the group meet yet another local TV station for an interview. Then he had a special treat – to have them meet with the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Dr. Ali Gomaa. Dr. Gomaa is a leading dignitary in Egypt. The meeting went very well. Dr. Gomaa presented gifts of appreciation certificates and presents to all the members of the team. He also promised to
collaborate with Rotaplast on future missions.
In the meantime, Peter Lagarias, Co-Founder, Heather Merriam, Executive Director, and Brian Walker, Volunteer, were staffing the Rotaplast booth at the 100th annual Rotary International Convention. Having a booth at this convention, which was attended by more than 16,000 Rotarians from all over the world, gave Rotaplast the opportunity to spread the word about the success of the Egypt mission. The booth was visited by Rotarians from, among many other countries, Egypt. Thanks to the publicity generated during the visit, the Egyptian Rotarians were had already heard about the 127 new smiling faces in Egypt. There was even a rumor that it had been shown on CNN (we couldn’t find this reference, however). They were helped at the booth by DG Ayman el Dakhakhni, an Egyptian himself, who led district 5000 (Hawaii) to co-sponsor this mission.
All of the residents and staff of the El Balyana Hospital were extremely hard working. The student nurses were unsung heroines. They were at the hospital first thing in the morning, waiting for the arrival of the minibus, and the last to leave at the end of the day. Assigned to PACU and the post-operative ward, they were seen scurrying around with files, escorting family members to see the patients, changing very tall heavy oxygen tanks, and informing the patients of the post operative instructions.
Monday through Wednesday of week two were full days of surgery. The intense schedule was interrupted by visits from several local dignitaries, as well as visits from 5 television stations. The Rotaplast mission was locally famous by the end of the trip. Thursday, the last day, was a “half day”, ending at 2:30. Quartermaster Brian Walker had packed most of the boxes the day before. So at 2:30, after Dr. Capozzi finished the last case, there was time for an appreciation party for the all of the local staff.
Everyone received thank you gifts and shared the half vanilla, half chocolate
cake made for the occasion.
After a long work day on Saturday, the team was ready for a day off – a tour of the ancient sites of Luxor. Various guide books had been passed around among volunteers hoping to absorb 5000 years of history before viewing some of the many temples there. The four hour bus ride from Sohag to Luxor included beautiful picturesque countryside.
One non-cleft case was the very compelling story of one boy with unusually wide ears. “Hakim” had experienced much taunting by his age of 14 years. He was taunted and called “donkey ears.” His mother begged the surgeons to pin his ears back. “Psychologically, this is a very significant issue. It affects them deeply,” said Dr. Al Goldberg. For that reason alone, the surgery was a high priority and Hakim was squeezed into surgery on day two.



Wednesday, June 10 was surgery day. After the sifting process of the day before, a list of 13 patients were scheduled to be in three Operating Rooms. Each Rotaplast surgeon had an Egyptian plastic surgeon counterpart. After so many months of planning, it was exhilarating to watch the surgeons from the two countries perform surgery side by side. Though they spoke different languages, they had the common language of surgical training. “It’s very uplifting to be working with the great interest displayed by the plastic surgery department of Sohag University,” said Dr. Angelo Capozzi, Medical Director of the mission, and co-founder of Rotaplast. Given that the volunteers were very fatigued from jetlag, the day went remarkably smoothly. As with most countries, the family members of the patients had to be reassured and comforted during and after the surgery. The best practice is to bring in a parent as soon as possible in order to calm the patient. Sometimes the parent needs to be more reassured than the patient!
Equipment arrived at 3 am this morning. While this meant no sleep for the team (Mission Director Mike Fish, Quartermaster Brian Walker, in country coordinator extraordinaire Dr. Sherif al Bakri) who delivered it, it did mean we started the clinic on time. And what a clinic it was! We started early in the morning. We had everything ready to go at 9ish,
and did not finish processing 217 charts until after 8 pm. At certain points of the day, the heat and chaos was challenging. However, patience and cooperation persevered. The team, with a lot of help from Egyptian volunteers, managed to see everyone who waited long, hot hours to see if they could be evaluated. The Egyptian partners were extremely supportive. When we ran out of folders, forms, and printing paper, they made sure we had replacements in short order. There was every echelon of volunteer, from residents, to people who monitored the crowds, to those who served several glasses of water during the day. Everyone was intensely busy and time flew by. By the end of the long day, veteran Evelyn Abad, head nurse, had carved out a schedule for all of the surgery days. Tomorrow
we start bright and early – 5:45!
Most of the Rotaplast team has arrived in Sohag, Egypt. The medical and non medical volunteers came from several directions: Hawaii, San Francisco, Seattle, Pennsylvania, the UK, Germany and last but not least, Uruguay! With so many connections, there was bound to be a glitch or two. Our Orthodontist-Dentist, Dr. Mabel Garcia, will join the team Wednesday morning due to a canceled flight from Latin America. Furthermore, some of our boxes were detained by Egyptian customs for lack of a key signature. As this is our first mission to Egypt, it is not surprising that, in spite of the best efforts of planning, there was one more hoop to jump through.

