• Vietnam is officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. It is bordered by China, Laos, Cambodia, and the South China Sea
• Vietnam suffers from income inequality, healthcare issues, and gender inequality
• Vietnam is a single-party state
• Vietnam’s climate varies from region to region:
• Northern part of the country consists of highlands and the Red River Delta
• Southern part consists of lowlands and forests
• Before the Vietnam War, the country was economically based on the agriculture industry
• Now, manufacturing, information technology, and high-tech industries dominate a large portion of the economy of the country
• The poverty problem in Vietnam is becoming less of an issue as time goes on because of the growing economy
• Poverty in Vietnam is defined as living on $1 a day
• China, India, and the Philippines all have a higher poverty level than Vietnam
• Vietnam has seven major ports
• The largest city in Vietnam is Ho Chi Minh City with a population of over seven million
• The majority of the Vietnamese population practices the religion of Buddhism
• Malnutrition is still a common health issue in many of the provinces of the country
• Government subsidies only cover approximately 20% of medical care expenses
• Vietnamese cuisine is very healthy and contains little oil and many vegetables – pho is a common delicacy (one of my favorite dishes!) which is a noodle soup
• Tourism in Vietnam has increased over the past 10 years

Good luck to the HUGS team on their first mission to what seems to be a wonderful country with much to offer. Hopefully we will have pictures to share in the near future!

What: HUGS Annual Gala 2012
When: Friday, February 10th at 7 PM
Where: Irondequoit Country Club – 4045 East Avenue, Rochester

Music will be provided by the Skycoasters and our MC will be Don Alhart! Dinner is also included and there are many great prizes in our silent and live auctions. Best of all, the proceeds make microtia repair possible for hundreds of children who otherwise would not be able to receive this surgery. Keep your ears open for the announcement of this year’s theme!

To learn more about our fundraising efforts, visit the HUGS Foundation website.

Check out the wonderful pictures from the Quito 2011 mission!

Jonathan, a 6 year old Ecuadorian boy is one specific child on our missions who has touched all of our hearts. Jonathan is like any other typical 6 year old boy. He is bright and has a very charismatic personality. You would never know by his attitude what kind of hardships he has been through. Jonathan was unfortunately in a car accident which tragically left him without his right ear.

Most of the patients that come for surgery on our HUGS missions were born with microtia. Jonathan’s situation is clearly different and incredibly heartbreaking. When you look at his sweet face with his eager eyes, you know he yearns for nothing but to look and feel normal.

Jonathan has two goals: he wants to be like other children and he wants his mother to be proud of him. Fortunately with the help of our HUGS supporters, Jonathan can lead a normal life! However this won’t be possible until we get the donations necessary to help Jonathan come to the States. If you’d like to participate in making this procedure possible for the little boy, click here to donate.

The team found that every single child that was operated on last year came back this year for their second surgery! It is always great to see familiar faces, but having every single person come back is an accomplishment. Since microtia is such a rare deformity, it is tough to find hospitals and missions that can take care of it. This is why these families will continually travel to Antigua even if it takes days to get there.

There was an exciting surgical advancement that the HUGS team tried for the first time this year. Recent studies and research has shown that there is a new way to combine both stage 1 and 2 microtia surgeries. Scott Thompson, a surgeon that travels with HUGS on their Ecuador missions, played a role in some of this research for this particular advancement. The HUGS members decided to give it a go and it are very pleased with the results. This is a great advancement because it reduces the course of treatment from 4 years to 3 years. This makes it much easier for the families that are traveling so far; their surgical process is reduced by a year!

As always we are so proud of our HUGS team for working hard and making these missions a success. Pictures from this mission will be on their way soon! In the mean time, check up on pictures from the Guatemala Mission in 2010 if you haven’t had a chance to see them yet!

We all have had our fair share of experience with medical care and hospitals in the United States. Many people would gladly give an earful about their negative experiences with medical care; they always need to wait for their appointments even though they show up on time, they pay a ton of money for just a quick check up, they couldn’t find a close enough parking spot to the office, etc.

But do these people ever wonder what it would be like if they couldn’t get their medical care? Or if they had to travel for hours, or even days just to get to the nearest hospital? And then once they get to the hospital they don’t even know how long they have to wait for? This is the case for too many people in third world countries, and probably most that come to Antigua for our Guatemala mission.

Many of the families that I spoke with last year traveled for hours and sometimes even days just to get this surgery. A lot of them work in the campo which usually is very far away from cities. These families have to travel in buses on dirt roads for very long periods of time, hoping that the weather will hold up and won’t deter them from getting to their destination. Fortunately the patients that came knew about our mission before they made the trip. But can you imagine having to make that trip to the hospital if it was a life or death situation? When we are in a troubling health situation in the States, we just need to pick up our phone and dial 911 and help is on the way. This is unfortunately not the case for these families.

According to travel.state.gov, the full range of medical care is available in Guatemala City, which is approximately an hour away from Antigua. Medical care outside of Guatemala City is very limited. The public hospitals frequently experience serious shortages of basic medicines and equipment. If you are going to a private hospital, the care is is generally adequate for most common illnesses and injuries.

Most of the families that come to our HUGS missions could not afford the surgery if it was not sponsored by us. Of the dozen or so families that I interviewed, approximately 2 or 3 of them had medical insurance. Because microtia is not a fatal deformity, I can see why it is not high on the list to get repaired. Fortunately for our missions, these children’s lives can be transformed at no cost to them. These families truly realize the favor that we are doing for them; I have never met anyone as grateful as the people of Guatemala.

So next time you are irritated at the fact that you have to wait an extra 20 minutes at your doctor’s appointment, think about the Guatemalan families and how their medical system is compared to ours.

What is microtia?

Microtia is when the external ear is deformed and poorly developed. It is a relatively uncommon deformity and appears to be more prevalent in Central and South America than in North America.

What causes microtia?

Many believe that genetic factors play a role in the development of microtia. Decreased blood supply to the developing ear to the fetus during pregnancy is one theory. Others have theorized that certain medications the mother ingested during the pregnancy may have had the effect of microtia. It is also suggested that environment factors play a role. Unfortunately, a specific cause for the deformity has not yet been found.

How is it repaired?

Microtia is repaired by 3 to 4 separate surgeries that are separated by at least 2 months apart. The first stage surgery takes approximately 2 to 3 hours while the remaining stages take less than 2 hours. The first stage surgery requires one set of surgeons to harvest the rib in order to create a cartilage framework while the other set of surgeons simultaneously prepares the ear area for the framework to be placed. The cartilage is taken from a small segment of three adjacent ribs from the chest wall. This is then shaped and carved into a three-dimensional auricular structure.

It’s quite amazing that the patient’s ears can be completely transformed (and sometimes they have no part of an ear at all) into an ear that looks like yours or mine. Clearly it is a laboring process, but it is truly life changing. The photograph below would be classified as a grade 3 microtia deformity.

Today for my generation, Facebook is a one of our primary ways of communicating. As nice as it is to keep in touch with people from high school and other places where I have lived and traveled to, a lot of the time it can be more of a burden. When I look at my friends list, I realize that I give so many people a glimpse into my personal life by just being my Facebook friend; in my opinion, I believe we give this ability to too many people.

But there are times when something really exciting happens to me via Facebook that make me realize that it isn’t such a bad social media outlet. A few months ago, I was on Facebook on my phone and saw that I received a friend request from someone with a very Spanish looking name that I didn’t recognize. We all know that Facebook can have some spam issues, but I didn’t delete this friend request right away. A few days later I remembered the request and went to look it up on my computer.

To my amazement, I realized that this was a family that I had interviewed in Guatemala the previous year! The profile picture was the mother of Dara Patricia along with her daughter Dara. I recognized them almost instantly, especially because Dara had her post-op bandages on her head in this picture. It had been almost a year since I was in Guatemala which also meant it had been almost a year that I have even talked to this family. I had never been so touched, and never thought that Facebook could be as beneficial as it was to me that day.

Almost immediately after I accepted the request, I went and tagged Dara Patricia’s family in the photos that I have on my Facebook from my Guatemala trip. I wrote them a message, expressing my gratitude for finding me on Facebook. I felt so wonderful about the impact that HUGS has left on this family. Obviously it was strong enough that they would go out of their way to find one of the members on Facebook! I’m looking forward to talking with someone who went on the mission this year to see if Dara Patricia and her family came back.

And while we are on the topic of Facebook, make sure you check out the HUGS page and “like” us!

I have been fortunate enough that I have had the opportunity to travel to third world countries to do mission trips prior to Guatemala. However, this one was different from all of the rest. My role on the mission was to serve as a translator. I did things such as translating in post-op when the patient would need something, or helping out if a parent in the recovery room had a question. But the most exciting task I was assigned for the trip was to obtain the human interest stories of the patients and their families.

My Spanish skills were put to the ultimate test with this project. As daunting as it was initially, I began to feel as comfortable speaking Spanish with these families as I am speaking English with my own. The most rewarding part for me had to be the trust these families put in me; they would come looking for me if they had a question or concern. It’s amazing the connection that can be made after a short, 10 minute interview, especially with the language barrier that often comes in the way. Studying all of those verbs in high school and college Spanish class really paid off, and I would take those grueling classes all over again just to connect with these amazing Guatemalan families.

The thing I take away from all mission trips is the realization of how lucky I am. After these trips, I get to go home to my comfortable home with air conditioning and heat, running water, food in my stomach, and an education at a great university. Ask anyone and they will say these trips made them realize how lucky we are.

Unfortunately the Guatemalan families are not so lucky. Most of them traveled from hours away on a hot, crowded bus traveling along dusty, bumpy roads. A lot of them live and work on the campo which doesn’t produce a lot of income. Their living situation is probably in a cramped little hut with their bed being the dirt on their floor. But you would never know that this was their situation. They never complain; there is never not a smile on their faces as they stay at the hospital for a few days. They only sing our praises and thank us for being there to change their children’s lives.

Maybe we all can learn a little something from this contagious positive attitude that the Guatemalans graced me with. Their smiling faces and grateful hearts will never leave my memories from my trip to Antigua.

Fortunately HUGS is here to help these less fortunate families. The HUGS team, which is based in Rochester, NY, has traveled extensively to Ecuador, Guatemala, and is on to Vietnam in November. The team is composed of individuals from Rochester and also Boston, MA. These surgeons and medical team members give up a week of their paid work to come perform these free, life changing surgeries in third world countries.

If it weren’t for this dedicated team, these kids would not be able to live close to normal lives. This blog will tell a little more about what HUGS does, stories from missions, medical related news and advancements, as well as important issues that are going on in the countries we are traveling to.

“I cannot begin to adequately express the importance of the work we do on our missions. Each time we travel to a distant land, we are able to leave knowing that about 50 young people have been dramatically impacted by our efforts. Their faces have been changed, and their lives will never be the same. I invite you to join with me in continuing this important task, so that together, using the talents and resources that we have, we may leave this world a little better than we found it.”

Vito C. Quatela, M.D., Founder of HUGS