The Clinic is Completed

Susan is letting me write on the blog this time! The Craniofacial Clinic buildout is finally finished and really looks great. The purpose in doing this is to reduce the number of hospital cases we do by using the clinic as an outpatient facility thereby reducing foundation costs and increasing the number of cases we can do for the same amount of money. I brought a lot of instruments and some equipment with us but the dental chair, unit, light and air/water facilities needed to be purchased. The problem with much donated equipment is that it is a cast off from someone who no longer uses the outdated stuff or it is broken and requires hard to find and expensive parts. We thus invested in some new equipment that will last and can be repaired locally. Using my previous office as a template we employed a local carpenter to build out the cabinets, plumbing and electrical. We were able to get a donated panoramic x-ray machine to work so now we're in business. We should be able to do many of the cleft lip and some palates right in the office under local anesthesia and sedation. Dr. Guiverra, our plastic surgeon, was really excited after seeing the potential and I am anxious to work with him. I have struggled getting licensed through the local political boards and failed to get approval last week as one of the agencies once again failed to get their certificate to the Regulator Board in time so it will be January before I can be official, but we will begin to use the clinic anyway. I do have a cleft lip case scheduled later this week at Fatima Hospital Medical School. Hope you enjoy seeing the before and after pictures of the clinic. Hopefully, next month, there will be a few pictures of patients to show.