Dear SOS supporters,
I just returned from the 1st Lance Armstrong Foundation LIVESTRONG International Cancer Summit held in Dublin, Ireland. Our involvement in the Summit was featured in an article in USA Today: link.
I had the opportunity to represent SOS, along with Dr. Leo Vigna, an SOS member and surgeon in Malawi, to discuss a program we are supporting there. Although the majority of SOS‘ efforts continue to concentrate on building surgical capacity in Sierra Leone, we felt this was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up.
Patients such as Mercy T. (right), arrive at hospitals in Malawi almost daily, unable to eat, drink, or even swallow their own saliva, due to advanced esophageal cancer. Leo and colleagues in Malawi developed a program to place stents (tubes) into the esophagus so these patients can eat and drink for the remainder of their lives. The local surgeons also raised money to buy the stents.
SOS supported two training courses for 18 surgeons and 41 nurses from 11 hospitals to care for these patients who arrive at these facilities suffering. Amazingly, they are able to eat and drink as soon as the stents are placed – even on the operating room table! (Mercy T immediately after her stent, left).
Dozens of patients have already received these stents, and we hope that this vital program can continue to provide comfort to patients and their families during the last years of their lives.
We have a busy fall planned, with containers of supplies, district hospital surgery training courses, and working towards the surgical residency program in Sierra Leone. Our fall fundraiser will be in Manhattan on Thursday, October 29th – invitations will be coming out soon.
We thank you again for all of your support – please share this email with anyone you think might be interested in joining our mission. We have seen first hand the massive effect that your support has on patients and surgeons in Sierra Leone and now Malawi – and we thank you for making it possible for us to continue saving lives through improved surgical care.
Peter and Adam
Surgeons OverSeas (SOS)
www.surgeonsoverseas.org