So for the past week I have had the opportunity to work on the surgery team. We had two wonderful surgeons with us. Bart Saxbe is a general surgeon and Randy Kahan is a obstetrics and gynecological surgeon. Most of the surgeries done were herinas and vaginal historectomies.  It was probably the most interesting thing to be a part of because of the situation we were in. We had the luxury of working inside a hospital and using their facilities, which would never happen in the states. No U.S. hospital would let a random group of people come into their facility and bring in your own patients and surgeons without there being some sort of legal problems. At any rate, we were able to get into the hospital, but we still had problems with getting patients into the operating rooms because the surgeons of the hospital took up all the rooms until they were done for the day.  So we didn't get into surgery until 2 in the afternoon and finish at 9 or 10 at night.  This was the case for the first few days, until one of the surgeons put his foot down and was able to get us are own room for the whole day.  Then we were able to get into a groove and really get through a lot of surgeries. From a personal perspective, I was really nervous because I have really no surgery experience and speak little Spanish.  This caused a problem because I was able to scrub into the surgeries and hand them instrument, but I had no idea what the names of them were and the person explaining to me spoke Spanish! Eventually, I was able to learn the names of instrument and techniques from different surgeries.  It was truly a great experience and I am so glad I was apart of it. I am looking forward to the trip to Tulum, which is where the eight of us will be for the second week of the trip.

Lino