ORANGE COUNTY, Calif.””A team of 32 doctors, nurses, and social workers returned to the US on May 23 after a two-week comprehensive, multidisciplinary medical mission to Yerevan. The group primarily was comprised of health care providers from Orange County’s Children’s Hospital (CHOC) and St. Joseph Hospital. There were four members of the delegation of Armenian descent, the rest were Americans with various backgrounds. The trip culminated months of preparation and was conducted under the auspices of Arpan Global Charities, a philanthropic medical organization which has conducted charity medical outreach in over fourteen countries.
“The purpose behind the mission was more than treating patients and delivering equipment” in Armenia, remarked Dr. Sudeep Kukreja the Director of Arpan Global Charities, and Neonatal Intensive Care Director at CHOC. The medical team’s goal was to establish long-term relationships and create programs such as sister hospital networks that would insure that medical advances be maintained by appropriately trained clinicians in Armenia. In the two weeks in Armenia, the medical team was organized into groups. Surgeons and anesthesia were divided into their subspecialties of pediatric, thoracic, and orthopedic surgery. The pediatric intensive care team of doctors and nurses visited intensive care units at two hospitals and also participated in general pediatric care. The internal care team of doctors and nurses visited outpatient clinics through Yerevan, including Nor Hajin, Nor Nork, Massis, Ashtarak, and Kharbert districts. They also worked two days in Gyumri and visited two orphanages. Dentist Vazrick Navasartian remarked that he had been overwhelmed by emotion since the team arrived and he was grateful that Arpan chose Armenia as its mission destination. The team also included a lactation specialist from CHOC and a social worker who focused on children’s issues and women’s issues including visiting a woman’s shelter.
Dr. Brian Palafox, St. Joseph Hospital Cardothoracic Surgeon, taught three procedures never before performed in Armenia. With Dr. Armen Chalian, also from St. Joseph hospital in Orange, supervising the anesthesia, Dr. Palafox showed how to perform lung surgery via tiny incisions and a camera (called VATS-video assisted thoracoscopic surgery) and how to provide high level of postoperative pain management via tiny catheters placed strategically and outfitted with continuous local anesthesia bulbs via the “OnQ”
