This marks CSI’s 4th surgical trip to the pediatric Provincial Hospital in Thanh Hoa, Vietnam. We are pleased to have developed ongoing professional and collaborative relationships with our professional colleagues in the hospital. We want to thank our partner, IPSAC (International Pediatric Specialists Alliance for the Children of VietNam), for their ongoing support.

CSI’s multi-year commitment to Provincial Hospital has allowed our surgeons to follow children over time, providing critical follow-up care for urological as well as cranio-facial surgical care. We place a high priority on education and collaboration with local health professionals. By sending volunteer teams on a bi-annual basis CSI surgeons, anesthesia professionals and nurses have an opportunity to build on previous learning.  Our goal this week is to complete these final urology surgeries and to ensure that our Thanh Hoa partners have the skills and confidence to provide surgical care for even more children in their community.

From CSI volunteer nurse, Laura Peterson:

Meet Bach. He had quite the day.
Today he learned how to blow bubbles.
Tried orange Sunkist for the first time.
Learned a secret handshake.
Mastered the Mickey Mouse iphone game
All between having surgery, and waking up like a champ.

-AND-
He became the first kid here to make me cry. In a good way ?.

Mission work is a strange thing. You do so much good, but it never feels like ENOUGH.

But those bubbles? To him, they were more than enough. Perspective came today — in the form of this 3 year old, one dimpled cutie pie.

View more photos from the trip.