CHOP Clinicians Travel to Guatemala for Mission Trip

A number of plastic surgeons, anesthesiologists, orthodontists, pediatricians and nurses from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) recently embarked on a week-long mission trip to Guatemala to perform cleft lip and palate repairs. Upon arrival, they screened approximately 100 pediatric patients and operated on 64. The majority of children who underwent surgery were under 2 years of age.

“To put this in perspective, last year at CHOP, our cleft surgeons operated upon 70 new patients,” says David Low, MD, pediatric surgeon in the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at CHOP and lead plastic surgeon of the mission trip. “In Guatemala, we operated upon 60 previously unrepaired clefts of the lip and palate over just five days. We could not have done this without the outstanding Partners in Surgery program in Guatemala that sought out infants in the remote villages and jungles and provided nutritional support and medical care throughout their young lives. Our hosts were impressed by the professionalism and efficiency of a CHOP team that has been working together for years. After the first two days of the mission, they already invited us back in 2018.”

This trip was especially unique because it was predominantly made up of children who had never been operated on before. This factor allowed the CHOP team to treat patients first-hand, with the same level of care they routinely offer.