Lopez Mateos welcomed the Flying Samaritans Phoenix Chapter clinic with cool sea breezes and clear skies. The advance plane on Friday afternoon carried the cleaning and setup crew but it should be noted that the clinic was in excellent condition with Judith Logan having initiated the cleaning a few days earlier. Paul Rowley, Karen Felty, Olga de la Torre and Bonnie Lassen finished preparing the clinic for the arrival of the providers and patients on Saturday morning.
Our thanks go out to the pilots Chuck Schroll (who provided our Tucson volunteers), Paul Rowley, Nolan Larson, Pat McClure and Kip Kempton for providing transportation to the clinic.
There was a significant line of patients waiting for us to open the clinic and get started with triage. The planes arrived quite early and patients were being seen by 9:30. With Karen Felty on the ground early, dental hygiene started at 8:30.
We were able to provide 97 services with Carla Crawford seeing general medical patients, Claudia Hart seeing pediatric patients, and Gail Brown providing ob/gyn care. Additionally, we had a full complement of dental providers. Dentists included Saba Sadeghi, Happy Grewal and Christina Feliz. Dental hygienists were Shelly Collins and Karen Felty. Assisting in dental were Arjun Grewal and Olga de la Torre.
Interpreters this time were Ana Torres de Luallen, Cory Lovett, Kip Kempton and Bonnie Lassen. Bryan Kuhn was in charge of the pharmacy. Judy Chang, RN, updated and created medical files in triage. Helpers Dave Bowman and John Felty assisted in dental. Pat McClure was kept busy all day sterilizing instruments for the dental crew.
Nolan Larsen and Judith Logan dispensed reading glasses and sun glasses. And Paul held his monthly pilot safety talk.
Roberto Logan provided us with his usual, fresh delicious lunch which includes a tasty dessert (a very important item to some of us.)
The Saturday night dinners in Loreto are always a pleasant diversion from the busy clinic day and give us time to discuss ideas for improvement, what works well, items that need to be purchased and, of course, just to socialize a bit. I continue to be so impressed with the folks who give their time and energy each month to this mission.
Our aging dental equipment received a much needed upgrade thanks to the efforts of a number of folks who contributed ideas on what needed to be done and how to accomplish it. A big thank you goes out to Greg Hatch and Chuck Schroll for initiating the whole procedure. A new compressor and upgrades to the dental delivery units at each chair were completed earlier in the week by Richard Razor (a Tucson volunteer), Paul Rowley and some helpers from the cannery. Paul and Richard made a special trip to Lopez to accomplish the work. The whole effort involved many conversations between Greg, Chuck, Richard, Kevin James, me, Bob Dobransky, Pat McClure, Paul and Juan Manuel. Also our officers and coordinators were instrumental in the discussions and ultimate approval of the needed purchases.
A reminder: Our monthly administrative meeting takes place on the first Monday of each month at 6:30 p.m. at the Chandler Airport conference room. If you have an interest in attending, you are always welcome.
Bonnie Lassen
President/ Interpreter Coordinator
