Six members of our Plastic Surgery Specialists family spent the week of the 4th of July in Oaxaca, Mexico as part of a Florida Hospital SHARES surgical mission trip.  They saw 61 patients, operated on 39 children, most of them under one year of age, and performed a total of 47 operative procedures (cleft lip and cleft palate). 

This was Dr. Stieg's 18th  foreign mission trip and the third year in a row he has traveled to Oaxaca Children’s Hospital.  His daughters, Megan and Gretchen, and his wife, Sharon, accompanied him.  Sharon, who is an RN, helped coordinate the trip and also serves on the SHARES Board of Directors.  Leslie, one of our nurses, directed the Recovery Room, served as a circulating nurse in the operating room, and also serves on the SHARES board.  Diane, our Certified Scrub Tech and Surgical First Assistant, not only directed the operating room, but also spent countless hours in preparation for the trip.  The SHARES team packed and took with them the supplies and equipment necessary for the surgeries.

Dr. Stieg has been working in cooperation with Florida Hospital SHARES and Rotary (both locally and in Mexico) not only to help with the reconstruction of children born with cleft lip and palate, but also to help develop local Mexican Cleft Teams so that the children can have the long term care they need.  Dr. Letty Estrada is the plastic surgeon in Oaxaca with whom SHARES has been partnering.  During this trip, she was presented with $10,000 worth of medical equipment and supplies purchased through the generosity of Rotary.  Dr. Stieg has invited Dr. Estrada to come to Orlando to visit with our Central Florida Cleft Team, to help with her work of setting up a true multidisciplinary cleft team in Oaxaca.

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