UCLA doctors assist Gautemalan pediatrics
By Jeyling Chou
April 7, 2003 9:00 p.m.
Armed with duffle bags full of medical supplies, a team of UCLA
medical personnel traveled to Guatemala last month with a mission
of good will.
The doctors volunteered their time to perform 26 neurosurgical
operations free of charge, and changed the lives of 21 children in
a period of five days.
The doctors spent the duration of their trip on a hectic
schedule performing surgical procedures and screening patients for
treatment in the facilities of a local Guatemalan hospital.
However, the team’s goals and impact went far beyond the
confines of the intensive care unit and operating room.
“Our aim is not only to go and deliver medical care, but
to go and try to understand the conditions why many of the children
with neurological diseases don’t receive adequate
care,” said Jorge Lazareff, leader of the surgical team and
associate professor and director of neurosurgery at the UCLA Mattel
Children’s Hospital.
Lazareff also serves as executive director of Global Neuro
Rescue, the foundation which funded this and past trips in
conjunction with Healing the Children.
GNR aims to heighten the awareness of the prevalence of brain
disorders throughout the world by coordinating such voluntary
medical missions to developing countries.
The team hopes not only to leave the impact of the neurological
treatment they provided during their stay, but also the long-term
effects of guidance and training to the local Guatemalan health
officials and neurosurgeons.
“We hope to eventually work with some neurosurgeons (in
Guatemala) that want to learn how to do the jobs appropriately to
the point where our role will only be supervisory,” said
Michael Masterman-Smith, GNR research coordinator and project
director with the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine.
According to Lazareff, children with disease of the central
nervous system are often neglected by the health systems in
developing countries because of the assumption that the conditions
are hopeless.
According to the Institute of Medicine, neurological disorders
account for 15 percent of the total diseases affecting the
world’s poorest nations, while less than 1 percent of global
health funds go toward their treatment.
“There are neurosurgeons in Guatemala that have the
capability of taking care of the large population that we serve
when we travel,” Lazareff said. “We have to show them
that the treatments are possible and the outcome is worth the
effort that you put into it.”
GNR hopes to assess the reasons why children in developing
countries like Guatemala are not receiving the care, in some cases,
a basic neurosurgical procedure, that they need.
With the efforts of these voluntary missions, the challenges
which face the medical systems of developing countries can be
determined and perhaps lessened.
“They have a lot more people in Guatemala who have
marginal financial resources and therefore have less access to the
kind of medical care that we assume to be available in the United
States,” said Barbara Van de Wiele, clinical professor of
anesthesiology and director of the division of neurosurgical
anesthesiology.
The team consisting of surgeons, nurses and anesthesiologists,
completed a similar trip in September, and performed 28 operations
on Guatemalan children.
According to Lazareff, patients from the previous trip have
shown remarkable progress.
“We treated this child with a spinal tumor in September
and the family came back to us and made lunch for the entire
medical team,” Masterman-Smith said.
“The kid was dancing around the hospital with one of the
clinic staff. She was paralyzed from the waist down when she came
to the hospital in September.”
Ultimately, the team hopes that in the future Guatemala will no
longer need a visiting team from UCLA to treat pediatric
neurological diseases.
“If in five years from now, we are still doing these trips
we have failed because we aim to increase the participation of
local physicians,” Lazareff said. “I am very optimistic
because we have a high level of participation and interest from
local doctors.”
Many members of the medical team were also principle
participants in the separation of the conjoined twins who went home
to Guatemala in January.
Lazareff was a lead neurosurgeon in the successful operation,
which was also funded by Healing the Children.
“Doors somehow opened with the twins coming (to
UCLA),” Lazareff said. “We took advantage of the doors
opened to UCLA to facilitate our approach to the (Guatemalan)
authorities and thus became more efficient in achieving our
goals.”
The mission affected not only the children who received
treatment, but also the physicians and medical staff who provided
it.
“You know that at the end of the day when we come back
there are 21 kids that otherwise would have been steadily
progressing toward a negative outcome, and we just nipped it in the
bud,” Masterman-Smith said.
“To see that collaboration is really a beautiful
experience.”
