What specific kinds of orthopedic surgeries will Mercy Ships be offering?
Strauss: Our emphasis is going to be patients who have been suffering from long-standing, debilitating conditions. So we expect it will be primarily for those who have old injuries - bones that have been broken or motor vehicle injuries that were never tended to (in other words, the bones were never set properly so they are not able to walk on the leg that was broken or it may be distorted or misshapen) - or hands that are not functional because the arms that have been broken were never set correctly; those types of procedures.
One other type of procedure is dealing with children with the condition of club feet - where their feet are actually misdirected. It is a congenital condition where procedures can be done to restore the feet to the proper alignment and that allows the children to have normal mobility.
So even though it may be years and possibly decades that a person's bones were not being set correctly, you can still correct that after such a long time?
Strauss: Yes, and it requires again the orthopedic specialty. Though it is an unusual problem for them to deal with (of course being from the developed world), it is certainly something well within the range of what can be accomplished on the ship.
What is one of the most severe cases you've dealt with in terms of plastic surgeries?
Strauss: On the Africa Mercy, I was there to start the eye surgeries a couple of weeks ago. We've done VVS (vulvar vestibulitis syndrome) surgeries on the new ship now and orthopedic has done their first case, but we haven't yet done our first maxofacial case on this ship. That will be in another few weeks until we start that.
But in the past, one of the worst cases I've seen was a 7-13 pound tumor, a huge tumor, on the face of this young man that had distorted his face for years. He had to walk around with it sort of draped so that it wouldn't scare people away and he was pretty much an outcast.
Which country was this in?
Strauss: I believe this was in Sierra Leone.
