By Grace Randall and Fina Maldonado, Students, Bronxville High School

May 10, 2017:  The newly founded Medical Science (Med Sci) Club at Bronxville High School, created by co-presidents Grace Randall and Fina Maldonado, is driven by students who have an interest in the field of medicine and care about helping those who are less fortunate.

This past January, a member of our community, Lianne M. de Serres, MD, traveled to India on a medical mission with Healing The Children Northeast, an organization whose goal is to treat children with facial deformities who would otherwise not have access to medical care. The Med Sci Club helped to fundraise for Dr. de Serres's trip and would like to continue supporting this amazing cause by providing the rest of the community with a chance to contribute.

Patients and their families waiting to be screened in Indore, India. Photo by Dr. John Zheng.

We discovered through this fundraising effort that having access to quality medical care is something that many of us tend to take for granted. This is not the case for many people across the world. India is the second most-populated country in the world, yet only 17% of the people receive health care, leaving millions of sick individuals untreated.

We were fortunate enough to hear about the trip personally from Dr. de Serres and were inspired to relay the story of her incredible mission. Dr. de Serres, a pediatric otolaryngologist, traveled with a team of 28 other members, which included plastic surgeons, pediatricians, anesthesiologists, nurses, speech pathologists, and administrators who are experts in treating these disorders. They spent a total of 15 days in the cities of Pune, Ujjain, and Indore, screened over 1,000 patients, and performed 175 operations on children and adults born with congenital defects such as cleft lip and palate and other facial deformities, as well as victims of trauma and burns.

Before and after palate closure. Photos by Dr. Lianne de Serres.

Dr. de Serres said, "Our hope is to make these unfortunate people whole again by treating these defects that severely impact their ability to be functioning members of their community." While a major focus of the mission is cleft lip repair, Dr. de Serres's particular expertise is in performing procedures to close open palate deformities and correct hypernasal speech in patients who have had previous palate repair. These problems, left untreated, greatly deplete these children's quality of life by making it difficult to feed, communicate, assimilate into their communities, and, as they grow, find employment or even a spouse.

One memorable patient was a 20-year-old married girl with an open palate who weighed 60 pounds because of her inability to get proper nutrition. A major complaint of her mother-in-law's was that she was too skinny to produce a grandchild (likely a result of her poor nutrition and low household rank because of the palate deformity). Hopefully, after her palate repair, she will be able to eat more effectively and gain the weight she sorely needs.

Yearly trips to India will be ongoing, and next year Healing The Children Northeast will expand its mission to sites in Jaipur and Mumbai as well, where a great need for this type of care has been identified. Just one U.S. dollar provides up to seven dollars' worth of medical care in India, so even a small contribution goes a long way. Your contribution can change the lives of countless children in a very tangible way.

Here is the link so that you can donate directly to this great cause:  http://www.htcne.org. To donate to the India missions specifically, you can put in "de Serres India Mission" in the "Instructions to Seller" box.

Pictured (at top): Dr. Lianne de Serres with a patient after palate surgery.

Photo by Dr. John Zheng