Plastic Surgery in the High Andes

One of the best things about being a plastic surgeon is having the opportunity to pack your surgical skills- and a little bit of suture- into your luggage and travel around the world to change the lives of others through plastic surgery.

This past June, I was fortunate enough to travel with my Miami team to the Peruvian Andes. It was an incredible experience and we are currently planning next year's trip for June 2009.

This week, our team was highlighted in the Miami Herald!

Outreach improves lives
Miami Herald- October 18, 2008:

Thanks to two Coral Gables churches, a family in Costa Rica now enjoys a healthier environment and scores of people in a remote Peruvian Village enjoy better health.

On separate trips in June, Granada Presbyterian Church and Coral Gables Congregational Church took their ministries on the global road as part of their respective efforts to help the underprivileged in other countries.

“This is something we’re extremely proud of because it’s not just changing one person, its changing a community,” said the Rev. Guillermo Marquez-Sterling, associate pastor at Coral Gables Congregational Church.” It’s our understanding of how God wants us to use our resources.” The church, 3010 De Soto Blvd., provides year – round support to various organizations that work with missionary sites and sends groups to the sites once or twice a year. This summer, the church assembled a medical team of eight nurses, two anesthesiologists and two plastic surgeons from the Miami area to visit one of a cluster of tiny villages in the sacred Inca Valley in Peru. The medical team performed 48 surgeries from removing a growth from the bridge of a man’s nose so that he could wear glasses to helping patients with major burn scars and ear reconstruction.

“It’s a gift from Miami to the people in Peru, and they were very grateful,” said plastic surgeon Dr. Pat Pazmino of Miami Aesthetic.

Dr. Pazmino, who traveled with the church for the first time in June, said it was an amazing experience. “We traveled down to Peru, and were thinking we were giving them this gift,” he said. “But after experiencing their warmth, generosity and gratitude, we realized we were the ones who had received the gift.”