We’re Back! Opening Day of the 2014 Trip

Hola Kid’s First Blog Followers!

The band’s back together for the 2014 trip. This run to San Miguel is particularly special because it is Kid’s First 10th trip to the city. We are so appreciative to the people, volunteers, government, and hospital of San Miguel for being so helpful and welcoming for the past 10 years.
This year’s team is one of the biggest with a total of 31 members! Every one of them showed up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (…more or less) for clinic Sunday. This year we are fortunate enough to have 4 attendings, 1 fellow, and 1 soon to be resident (Marissa graduates from medical school in 2 weeks! Proud Kid’s First team) so we were able to see nearly 200 kids in clinic and decided to operate on 50+ of them. After 10 years of clinics in San Miguel, the team has the operation down to a science. While Dr. Mencio, Dr. Stutz, Dr. Fitch, Dr. Andrews and team anesthesia saw patients, the rest of the crew unloaded roughly 150 boxes that made the trip from Nashville to San Miguel the week before. OR rooms and recovery were set up and instruments sterilized while the 200 kids passed through the hospital’s doors.

A long day came to a close around 6:30, and a hungry team headed to dinner at a new restaurant before heading back to our houses to rest up for our first day of surgeries. We are thankful for finishing our 10th clinic day relatively unscathed and prepped for what promises to be another incredible week.

In the past, we’ve done ‘spotlights’ on different members of the team. Today’s spotlight is on our surgeons! Dr. Mencio, Dr. Stutz, Dr. Andrews, and Dr. Fitch are all our veterans who lead the team strong and keep us all in line (ha). This year we are fortunate to have Stephanie Mayer join us as a peds fellow from Denver. She was a resident with Dr. Fitch at Duke and is making her first run with us in San Miguel. We love our blue devils around here. Welcome Stephanie!! Look out San Miguel, we also have another Dr. Mencio on our hands! Marissa will graduate from the University of Tennessee Medical School at the end of May and head to Chattanooga for her residency. Although she is now officially (in 2 weeks) ‘Dr. Mencio’ she is no newbie to the trip. Ris has been coming on the trip since she was 18 and has seen as many clubbed feet as the rest of us.
The week is underway! Check back in each day for an updated blog post(s). Hasta luego!