Jacksonville neurosurgeons take life-saving skills, donated equipment to Philippines

July 05--It always hits him the first day.

Every two years Jacksonville pediatric neurosurgeon Philipp Aldana takes a team of volunteer surgeons and other health care professionals on a week-long educational medical mission trip to his native Philippines. They teach new neurosurgical techniques to Filipino doctors and work with them on neurological cases.

On the first day of every 9,000-mile trip, he is quickly reminded of the vast gap between the medical expertise, insurance coverage and even access to health care typically available in the Philippines and back in the United States.

"Our country has so much," he said of his adopted homeland, compared to "the day-to-day struggles these people have. It takes them days, several bus rides and a ferry boat ride ... to get to a hospital."

In 2010 Aldana, who works at Wolfson Children's Hospital and UF Health Jacksonville, and his wife, Carmina Montesa Aldana, created the locally based Neurosurgery Outreach Foundation to help narrow that gap with biennial medical mission trips.

For their latest trip, in late June, the couple was joined by Ricardo Hanel, endovascular neurosurgeon with Baptist Health and Lyerly Neurosurgery; H. Gordon Deen Jr., neurosurgeon at Mayo Clinic; and Karen Lidsky, pediatric critical care physician with UF Health Jacksonville and Wolfson Children's Hospital, as well as other volunteers.

The team gave training lectures to about 50 Filipino health care providers, including 20 neurosurgeons, on a variety of topics. They brought $100,000 worth of new surgical clips -- donated by a medical company -- to treat aneurysms, a procedure that had not been used before in the Philippines. They also brought other donated supplies and $15,000 that will be used for an indigent patient fund.

Working with their Filipino colleagues, they provided free surgical care to eight people -- four children and four adults -- whose conditions included brain and spinal cord tumors, brain aneurysms, neck instability and hydrocephalus.

"It's always something new," Aldana said. "We never really know what cases we'll encounter until a week or two before. ... There is no shortage of cases."

One of the patients was a 4-year-old boy with hydrocephalus, a rare craniofacial condition that causes skull deformities. Another was a retired elementary school teacher with a brain aneurysm. The surgery needed by both was complicated and expensive.

The boy lived in an orphanage that had limited finances. The retiree would have had to wipe out her entire retirement fund to pay for her surgery, and her condition could not have been treated without the materials and expertise brought by Aldana's team.

Such patients are "uniformly grateful, some profoundly," he said.

This trip the team worked out of Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu. Wyben Briones, chairman of the center's neurology department, said he was grateful for the "generosity" of the foundation and the U.S. team.

"Very important to us as a teaching institution was the sharing of neurosurgical knowledge," Briones said. "Our neurosurgeons who came from all over the country sure learned a lot during the live surgeries, lectures and discussions. The cases ... were very complex and difficult ones."

All eight patients "are recovered and well," he said.

The mission "gave so much to our patients and to our training program," he said. "Our sincere thanks to ... the people who contributed their time and resources to the success of that very laudable humanitarian effort."

Marlys Healy runs Children Shelter, the Cebu orphanage that is home to Thomas, the young boy with hydrocephalus.

"We couldn't be more supportive and positive about our experience with Dr. Aldana and his team," she said. "To think that they were all volunteers and spent their own money to come here to work with these kids was amazing. ... Such a worthwhile organization."

She said "something extraordinary happened" when she and Thomas met Aldana and Lidsky.

"There was an indescribable peace that came over us and even the little boy was calm when Dr. Aldana examined him," Healy said. "They were approachable, kind and filled with compassion."

Working in Cebu at Vicente Sotto Memorial was particularly impactful for Aldana. He grew up in that area of the Philippines and his late father was a groundbreaking neurosurgeon at that very hospital.

"This is more meaningful to me as we are helping the neurosurgery department that my father helped found," he said. "It touches me on many levels, the personal connection you have with patients, working with surgeons he trained, the personal satisfaction you get."

The public can support the foundation by donating money, medical equipment or time. Such humanitarian work, regardless of the cause, is fulfilling, Aldana said.

"Go out and help less fortunate people. Everyone can make a difference." he said.

Beth Reese Cravey: (904) 359-4109

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