From Minnesota with love, surgeons heal broken smiles, deliver hope
Volunteer doctors, nurses performing cleft lip, cleft palate surgeries by Paul Chaderjian Published: Saturday October 11, 2008 Yerevan - They came to Armenia from Minnesota and the Midwest - the American Heartland - on a medical mission. They came to heal those born with one of the most common birth defects around the world - cleft palates and cleft lips. "Overnight we change people's lives," said volunteer Heidi Shafland, a pediatrics ICU nurse from Children's Hospital in Minnesota. "Many children with cleft lips or cleft palates don't go to school. They don't leave their house. They don't have jobs. They don't marry, and we can change someone's future overnight." After more than a dozen hours of travel and little rest overnight, Ms. Shafland and 18 other volunteers from the United States - surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, coordinators, and medical record specialists - reported for duty at a local medical center l...