More on Udon Thani

Those who know me won't be surprised to hear that I've been a slug about keeping up the blog. The mission in Udon Thani was extremely well organized. One of our sponsors was Bangkok Hospital, a chain of hospitals in Thailand. The CEO of BH is a pediatrician and the chief of staff is a retired army physician whose last assignment was surgeon general of the army. They were both very friendly and made the travel in Thailand as smooth as possible. I recommend having a general on your side whenever traveling abroad.

Our hosts took us to a presentation of a national epic story, with fabulous costumes.

Dr. Shogren-Knaak at the opening ceremonies. The king of Thailand was one of our sponsors so we all got shirts in his birthday colors for 2013. Dr. S-K is giving Lance a view of the proceedings. She appears to be in good spirits despite wearing damp underwear for the last three days.

Susan Lee, a medical student from Rochester, place a laryngeal mask in this young woman.

Traci and Chorladda, one of the CRNAs who helped us in the operating room. The nurse anesthetists were good clinicians and good hosts. Traci is old-school, uses a precordial stethoscope.

This unfortunate lady suffered a bad burn with scarring. The contractures made for a difficult airway: limited neck extension and reduced ability to open her mouth.

We made lots of plans about how to manage this lady's airway. Glycopyrrolate to dry her mouth, topical lidocaine in her mouth and nose, and an inhalational induction. Her mouth didn't open enough to place an endotracheal tube or laryngeal mask, so plan C was an asleep fiberoptic intubation. You can see the endotracheal tube loaded on the bronchoscope. Adrianna Herrera, anesthesiologist from Yale, is doing a jaw thrust to make a space for the bronchoscope to pass through the hypopharynx.

On Saturday, after the work was done, our hosts took us on a cruise on a lake near Udon Thani. The lake is famous for the lotus plants that grow there.

Saturday night our hosts threw a party. I have never seen so many lovely costumes (not to mention the ladies wearing them). These folks were hospital personnel dressed for the dances that were part of the proceedings.

After dinner there was karaoke. I couldn't leave without performing my cover of "Close to You".  Karen would have been proud.