I'm on cloud nine. I just transferred 388 ceedees ($390 or 248€) to Dr. Lucia Visser of Holy Family Hospital in Berekum, Ghana, and OperationOF has now officially funded our first surgery! Besides ensuring that Isabella never saw a bill, Dr. Visser also sent me a very detailed and itemized account of all related expenses. Adding this detail to other cost estimates we have collected is helping create an economic model to simulate different approaches to treating OF. We are already simulating some process improvement concepts that we believe will cut significant expense from this intervention. So while the OperationOF team is thrilled to pay just under $400 for a 45 minute surgery that gave Isabella her life back, we are even more excited by the possibility of delivering like transformation to many more women for even lower costs!

Speaking of the OperationOF team, I want to introduce Shannon Dugan. As a key member of our budding organization, Shannon has contributed greatly to helping get OperationOF off the ground. In fact, Shannon is the person who actually first brought OF to my attention. She will be spending her summer internship in East Africa helping us get the pilot phase of our treatment effort started. Shannon is a great writer and will be posting to the blog throughout the summer.

On a final administrative note, we now have pictures up from the trip to Berekum, Ghana. Have a look!