Meet the Team

Ah, the ever-creative title of the week's first blog... as the long-time readers (both of them) yawn.  But let's face it~  not much has happened yet.  We just got here this evening after the several hour ride up through the mountains from Guatemala City.  After a quick run to the grocery store, we now have our beds made and rooms moved in to for the week.  Now it's time to sit back, relax, fix a cup of tea, and light the pilot light for the hot water.

Oh wait~  we also have to spend half an hour trying to get Chris's phone to recognize the Guatemalan network so she can talk to her baby!  It's funny, though-- we were pretty tempted to get irritated about that, and then I remembered that on pretty much every single trip, there is some kind of internet or phone technology that needs troubleshooting-- but every single trip, we have all the phone and internet service we need!  I have called in to plenty of conference calls or over-internet meetings from here, I've stayed up to date on email, and I've caught up on patient charts in the EMR.  All pretty amazing technology making the world smaller and smaller -- and taking away our excuses not to travel it!

Anyway, I promised to introduce you to the team so here goes:  I'm Heidi, the arguably craziest of us as this is somewhere around my 33rd trip back down here for a week after moving back to the US in 2008 (my husband Matt and I lived here in Guatemala from 2006-08).  I'm an OB/GYN, and it's kind of a long story, but this is the only place I actually practice clinical medicine anymore.  I'm starting to miss it more and more, so these trips are an amazing privilege and blessing every. single. time.

Chris (DeLuca) Schwering many of you also know~  she was a resident at ECU when I was an attending there, and this is now at least her 8th trip back since going with me as a resident!  So very cool to now be taught by my former student many surgical skills she has picked up since then... never stop learning, right?  Her husband Tony flew down with us but rode out to Canillá this morning to install some WiFi, security cameras, and other generally tech-y stuff for the new hospital there.  They left their 3 year old sweetie, Caitlyn, and an 11 month old foster baby, nicknamed "Bubbles" for privacy, in very capable hands at home~  but still, it's hard to be away from each other and the tiny ones, so please pray for comfort for them this week!  (I should also mention they have a beautiful 21 year-old daughter also-- but they're pretty used to her being away at college ;-))

Adele Moser is a third-year OB/GYN resident in the Wilmington, NC program.  She is actually the fourth resident to come down from that program in the last couple of years, but the first one that I actually knew before traveling together!  We met when she was a third year student, and I have adored her ever since.  I'm really looking forward to seeing the amazing amounts she has learned in the last four years and hopefully getting her some great operative experience.

It's only about 8:00 here, but a group picture will have to wait until tomorrow-- some of us (i.e., Adele) had been up since before 2 am local time and thus didn't make it far in to the evening!

Tomorrow we will spend just a bit of time in the market, then set up and run clinic all day.  We will have a better idea of what's in store for us once we get through usually 20 patients or so tomorrow, so clearly we will keep you posted and try to get some pictures up.

Thanks for following along with us and praying for health, wisdom, and safety this week for us all.