Hanoi Maxillofacial Mission, September 2017
For the first time, Facing the World brought a small team of Consultants from the UK to Vietnam representing all aspects of Maxillofacial surgery, with the aim of holding a week of concentrated teaching and operating focused on one speciality.
The charity hopes to hold more such targeted missions to supplement the UK Fellowship Programme and the much larger cross-speciality annual missions.
The Surgeons, Anaesthetist and Orthodontist spent a week working at Facing the World’s partner hospitals in Hanoi: Hong Ngoc Hospital and Viet-Duc University Hospital. Together with a team of Vietnamese consultants the FTW team assessed 66 patients. Each patient was triaged and had treatment plans developed. Of these 66 patients, 15 patients were operated on across both sites.
Some of the conditions treated by the team were:
– Cleft Lip and Palate
– Hemifacial Microsomia
– Traumatic injuries to the face
– Salivary Gland Tumours
The mission was focused around the teaching and delivery of Orthognathic surgery for patients with severe facial deformity. Its purpose was to undertake cases which required multidisciplinary input, and to plan and treat these complex cases thereby affording hands-on teaching opportunities. Time was also spent both lecturing and teaching the Vietnamese teams to implement the approach to joint care that is already established in the UK. Teams made up of both the UK Consultants and Vietnamese Consultants carried out all operations.
Example Case Study 1
Bimaxillary (2-jaw) surgery was undertaken to address severe malposition of the jaws.
Example Case Study 2
Surgery was undertaken to remove a large cyst with potential to result in a fractured jaw, corrective surgery to frontal bone (forehead) trauma and nasal reconstruction. Decompression of an orbital deformity resulted in improved visual acuity (eyesight) and improvement of Diplopia (double vision).
On-going clinics have been established whereby patient treatment plans will continue to be discussed, initially via Skype and then via In-Touch technology.
This smaller, more specialised mission was well received by the hospitals and is a formula the charity will continue with going forward.