Another day of scrubbing and circulating theatres, and another day of firsts. Senthil (my roomate and our fearless PA) got to do his first bilateral temporal artery resection. He was so pumped that he had done a great job and the case had gone well, and we were all so proud of him! Both vessels were almost totally occluded, or blocked.We finished up at a more reasonable time today because Dr. Mallenga, the Ugandan Minister of Health, was holding a reception for us back at the hotel. The event was an all-out gala, with many hospital workers as well as Ugandan dignitaries there to meet us. We were all quite dingy and ragged looking in comparison to our hosts, but no one cared. They recognized us, gave gifts, and fed us a wonderful dinner.
The highlight of this evening was the acknowledgment of Robbie Diggs (pictured here on the far left), for whom the entire hall gave a standing ovation for his efforts. Let me tell you about this humble hero from Anson County, NC. Robbie had agreed to go on the trip in support of another biomedical engineer from Duke. When his counterpart was forced to withdraw from the mission days before leaving, Robbie stepped up in a big way. He was constantly seen running around in circles, fixing light sources that had blown out bulbs from power surges, getting taxied around Kampala, hunting down any available transformers with whatever money he had in his pockets, teaching the resident technicians at Mulago how to operate and maintain these machines...He even had to repair our OR microscope--intraoperatively--that had shut down during one of Dr. Zomorodi's complicated brain surgeries. He would never tell you how many impossible challenges he faced and had to overcome, so allow me...this guy is a stud.
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