Dr. Mike McDonald Brings Ear Nose Throat Services to HHPF Honduras Service Learning Trips

In 1998, Michael McDonald, MD, an otolaryngologist from Madison, WI, joined a medical mission to La Ceiba, Honduras and saw a great need for Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) services. The ENT mission has grown to a yearly humanitarian trip to provide ENT surgery, hearing evaluation, and hearing aid dispensing to the people of Honduras.

 

The 7-day trip typically starts on a Saturday of March. The team travels to La Ceiba where we work together to organize equipment and donated supplies.  The team then starts seeing patients in the clinic on Sunday with local otolaryngology surgeon, Dr. Rigoberto Tabora. We often see 60 to 70 patients in the clinic, and 40 are scheduled for surgery during the week.

 

Throughout the week, surgeons, surgical technologists, operating room nurses, anesthesiologists, and recovery room nurses participate in procedures in two operating rooms.

Audiologists and others screen patients and take hearing aid molds to dispense hearing aids the following year