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- HTCNE sent out 10 teams. These consisted of Facial Plastic Cleft Lip/Palate Speech Pathology, and Dental teams.
- These teams screened 1,382 children and operated on 907 children
- The total value of services donated In-kind was $3,740,024.00
- Donated medical supplies brought on these trips were valued at In-kind $214,500.00
- Speech Teams provided educational workshops and training valued at $2,400.00
- 149 team members traveled to 4 countries
- 43 of our members were new this year
- Our International Inbound Program brought one child to the U.S. from Mexico who was treated at Shriners Hospital. Shriners donated $44,709.94 worth of services
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Congratulations
Dr. Manoj Abraham
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for receiving the
1887 Award
American Academy of Facial Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery
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The following is an interview with Dr. Abraham:
When Manoj Abraham began thinking about careers to pursue, he considered becoming a biomedical research scientist, not a doctor. After finishing at Brown University, Dr. Abraham spent a summer as an emergency room technician in Providence, RI. It was during this time that he discovered that he had a strong affinity for patient care. That discovery, plus his experiences growing up in Sri Lanka during a time of ethnic and political strife, drew Dr. Abraham to humanitarian work in medicine. "I saw a lot of difficult things, a lot of awful conditions, some of the worst aspects of humanity, growing up," he says. "So I feel particularly passionate about what I do now."
Today, Dr. Abraham is an accomplished physician, surgeon, and valued HTCNE Medical Teams Abroad leader who shortly will have 15 missions to the following countries behind him (including the January 2017 multiple missions to India): Guatemala, Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru (Lima and Ica) and Thailand. Dr. Abraham said, "Being able to heal a child's facial disfigurement is incredibly gratifying. These kids are ostracized because of the way they look, but we can restore them so that they look normal, and then they'll get treated as normal."
Board-certified in both otolaryngology and facial plastic reconstructive surgery, Dr. Abraham is a clinical instructor at the New York Eye & Ear Infirmary, at New York Medical College, and at Mt. Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine in Manhattan.
"It's so amazing to work with the young surgeons. And it isn't just about teaching them what I've learned, it's also about imparting my excitement to them about what I do," Dr. Abraham says. One of his residents, John Zheng, will accompany him next month to India, where he will be the senior surgeon for Medical Teams Abroad missions at three different sites: Pune, Ujjain, and Indore. Dr. Abraham is team leader for Ujjain, Dr. Shaun Desai leads the team at Pune, and Dr. Matt Johnson at Indore.
In anatomy class during his first year of medical school at Cornell University, Dr. Abraham became intrigued by the compact structure of the head and neck region and the particular intricacy of its functioning. He is certified to perform a very precise subspecialty of head and neck plastic surgery: microvascular reconstruction, a technique for rebuilding the face and neck using blood vessels, bone, and tissue, including muscle and skin from other parts of the body.
Dr. Abraham had been volunteering with another humanitarian organization, five missions with the CRISP Foundation at UCLA Medical Center, where he was completing a fellowship. After that he moved east and began working at the Fishkill Surgery Center. There he met HTCNE treasurer, RN, and avid mission participant Debbie Fritz who invited him to lead a Medical Teams Abroad mission to Santa Marta, Colombia. That experience sold him on HTCNE.
Earlier this month, Dr. Abraham received the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery's 1887 Award in recognition of his work as "a humanitarian, researcher, teacher, and staunch supporter of the Academy." He is incoming chair of the Academy's FACE TO FACE Committee, which offers
pro bono
facial plastic and reconstructive surgery to domestic violence survivors. "As FACE TO FACE chair, I'll have a direct line to Academy surgeons interested in humanitarian work. It's a great way for me to get the word out about HTCNE," he says.
Dr. Abraham is highly regarded by HTCNE for among other things, his capacity-building skill: his knack for exploring and establishing a mission site and then recruiting other qualified surgeons who can put their own teams together to perpetuate each site on an annual basis. He is also highly regarded by his patients and by independent ratings organizations. This year, Dr. Abraham was again named as an outstanding doctor by Hudson Valley Magazine, and was again listed in the prestigious Castle Connolly Guide to America's Top Doctors.
Dr. Abraham began thinking about expanding Medical Teams Aroad to India after discussions with Dr. Supriya Dixit of the India Project. Created by her philanthropic plastic surgeon father, the India Project and the infrastructure that he had built up began to languish after his death. His daughter wanted to continue her father's legacy, in part by encouraging the involvement of American surgeons.
"We went around last year with Supriya to locate the best places for us to set up Medical Teams Abroad sites. We visited Pune (a site we had explored the previous year), and we explored Ujjain and Indore as potential new sites. Next year we hope to increase our footprint in India to five sites. The more people we get involved, the more local capacity we can strengthen the more kids we can help. This is what we have done in Santa Marta, Lima and Ica."
The most difficult part of a mission, though, Dr. Abraham says, is getting it organized. "There have to be at least a few hundred emails, phone calls, just a lot of moving parts, so many connections to be made, everything, supplies, personnel, and permissions, need to be lined up very carefully in advance, it's organized chaos!" he says. "I'm not sure how Missy (Missy Law, program director, Medical Teams Abroad) and our team administrator, Dana Buffin, handle it, but they do a terrific job, along with all of our team members."
Having a recurring presence at mission sites is key to building capacity, Dr. Abraham says, because it fosters ongoing local involvement, augmented expertise, and increased self-reliance. "We want to get the local medical personnel at our sites to provide services themselves. It's about 'teaching people how to fish.' And we learn from them, too. For instance, since local resources are so limited, they wash and reuse many items (like suction tubing) which we would casually dispose of back home. So we learn by observing their practice."
"Our missions have a ripple effect," Dr. Abraham says. "You can do only so much by yourself, but when you pass on what you know to others, and then they pass it on to still others, you can reach so many more kids in more places."
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THANK YOU to Master Hong and his Academy, Hongs Olympic Taekwondo Academy, 89 Danbury Rd in New Milford. They held a fundraiser in October and all proceeds came to our organization.
They raised $4,436.36!!!
Those pictured are: Master Hong (Seongho Hong), Minju Jung, Georgann McCarroll, Missy Law, Katushka Millones
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