Video message by Julie Choueiki | Director of Nursing and Education
Conversation with Ivon Martinez | Coordinator
MISSION STATEMENT
In the developing world, pediatric surgical caregivers are in short supply, and advanced surgical techniques to correct relatively common pediatric congenital colorectal anomalies are often lacking. So, CTO was formed to reach out and bring this education and training to the medical doctors, surgeons and nurses all over the world so they can care for the patients in their areas who are in desperate need of this specialized care. When the local surgeons. and hospital staff are able to provide similar care for their region, we have reached our goal. We accomplish our goal by sending a surgical team that performs 5-10 operations per day on local patients over the course of the trip (1-2 weeks). These operations also serve as teaching opportunities for the local surgeons and hospital staff. The focus is on performing the types of cases that come up frequently to help the local surgeons and nurses improve the quality of care they can offer this unique group of pediatric surgical patients. CTO strives to both anatomically repair congenital malformations and also to achieve the best possible functional outcome to help these patients enjoy the best possible quality of life. This requires long term care and close follow-up from the time of the patient's first contact, through childhood, and in some cases into adulthood. The ability to help these developing countries with this type of educational plan is the only way, we believe, to achieve sustainability.
Conversation with Dr. Marc Levitt | CTO Founder & Pediatric Surgeon
Conversation with Dr. Marc Levitt | CTO Founder & Pediatric Surgeon
Drawing by Teagan Kondik
The Story of the Rainbow Fish
In Marcus Pfister’s children’s book, THE RAINBOW FISH, the main character is a fish whose scales incorporate all of the colors of the rainbow. He is bright and beautiful, admired by all of the other fish in the ocean whose scales have no color at all. One day, the rainbow fish is approached by one of these fish and asked if he might have one of the rainbow fish’s colors. Willingly, the rainbow fish gives one of his colors away. Word spreads among the other fish in the ocean. And they each begin approaching the rainbow fish about receiving one of his colors. The rainbow fish obliges. Eventually, the rainbow fish gives away all of his colors so that the ocean is full of beautiful fish of all shades.
It has been suggested that the Colorectal Team Overseas (CTO) team is well represented by the rainbow fish. They are committed to educating others about colorectal problems and their treatment and have done so by hosting educational courses for physicians and nurses and by traveling around the world to perform surgeries. The team welcomes and even encourage the physicians and nurses of patients they are treating from around the country and around the world to come to their hospital to assist in the patients’ care so that they will be better equipped to manage these patients upon their return home and will receive education about how to diagnose and treat future children. The Center also supports a fellowship for surgeons interested in learning specifically about pediatric colorectal problems. So surgeons, other doctors, nurses, residents, students, parents, and children are recipients of a rainbow colorectal scale that the CTO team has generously “given” to them.
Additionally, when one considers congenital defects they almost always distribute across a wide spectrum, from straightforward to complex, represented by the rainbow color spectrum. Finally, all fish have a cloacal malformation, a complicated type of defect that occurs in girls.
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