May 16 - May 29th, 2012

Happy New Year to all of you and your families.

We still have four months before the next trip to Palestine, but I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for coming on previous trips, and thank you particularly for coming with us to Palestine from May 16th until the 29^th. As you’ll remember, on the last trip we went to Jenin (in the northern West Bank) and to Hebron (in the south). We also hosted a Basic Life Support team from Operation Smile. These individuals worked in Jenin, Ramallah, and Hebron.

During the upcoming trip, we have planned to form three teams each consisting of an anesthesiologist and CRNA, two surgeons, and a nurse. One team will go to Nablus, another to Ramallah, and the third to Hebron. We are doing this with on-going support from the Palestinian Cleft Society, SmileTrain, and Operation Smile. We hope to have teams of Operation Smile members training Palestinian practitioners in Pediatric Advanced Life Support techniques.

As in previous trips, we’ll do our best to leave together on May 16^th; return is scheduled for May 29^th. We’ll arrive on Thursday the 17^th, travel to Ramallah, and have the Interim Meeting of the Palestinian Cleft Society leadership on Friday the 18^th. This will give all of the team members a chance to get to know each other, and to be reacquainted with members of PCS. On Friday afternoon, we’ll leave for the three locations. The Operation Smile PALS course will start in Ramallah, then go to Nablus, and finish in Hebron.

The Anesthesiologists who are currently coming or potentially coming are Robert Karoukian (San Francisco), Winston Ota (Hawaii), and Janie Magee (UNC, to be determined).

The CRNAs coming are Bobby Silvers (UNC), Tim Hatcher (Los Angeles), with the third to be determined.

The Nurses coming are Cindy van Aalst (UNC), Emma Marks (UNC), with the third to be determined.

The Speech Pathologist coming is Allison Dybdahl (Los Angeles).

The Surgeons committed to coming are Libby Wilson (Los Angeles), Ray Harshbarger (Austin, TX), (possibly Ray’s Craniofacial Fellow), Steve Bureau (Calgary, Canada), Don LaRossa (Philadelphia), and John van Aalst (UNC).

We will request two rooms for the entire time of operating at each of the hospitals.

We will do Orthognathic Surgery in Nablus and in Ramallah. We’ll do a single Orthognathic case a day in these two locations (with primary emphasis on training local surgeons), in addition to cleft-related cases. We are currently putting together all of the supplies for the Ortho cases.

Thanks. This will be the first time that we’ve operated in three locations at once. We’ll need to keep in touch with each other during the week in order to provide the safe care that the Palestinian Cleft Society expects of all of us.

I look forward to staying in touch about any questions you may have.

All the best to you and your families in this great New Year.

John

(On behalf of the Palestinian Cleft Society)