Operative Day 1
Buenas Noches from Nicaragua! We have had yet another inspiring day!
We left Managua at 7:30 am after picking up other team members at the airport and traveled approximately 2 1/2 hours to the mountainous area Esteli, making a pit stop at PMI’s new clinic in Sabaco. With Julio, the best bus driver in Nicaragua, and Oscar, our PMI Volunteer Coordinator, we easily navigated our way.
We arrived in Esteli at 10:30 am and unloaded all 21 of our containers, and officially moved into Hospital Escuela San Juan de Dios for the week. In great time Our team organized our sterile packs, the vendors organized our inventory of implants, and prepped our trays for sterilization. Our team of physicians met our first set of patients and their families.
While waiting for our instruments to go through the sterilization process we dropped our luggage off at the hotel, and then grabbed some delicious Nicaraguan cuisine, before heading back to the hospital to see patients from last year whom are doing so well. Many of which have returned this year to have their other knee done. A Nicaraguan TV journalism team came to capture all the excitement and even joined us in the OR.
Today we performed 4 total knee surgeries, after which we came back to the hotel and spent time sharing our most memorable stories of the day, and then to bed early knowing we have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow.