Update on The Shalom Foundation Story

Testimonials

I came on this trip to experience a medical mission, mainly as way to break the mundane daily grind of everday life. But I will come away from this place with a different set of priorities.
— Brian S. Kim, M.D

I absolutely love being a surgeon and working in an operating room. I enjoy the technical aspects of operating and performing the manual tasks of making an incision, meticulously dissecting anatomical structures, repairing pathology, suturing and tying knots and closing an incision at the end of a successful operation. However, sometimes it can be easy to forget the relevance of the work you do when you are in the middle of it. I was reminded of that impact when I went to talk to the mother of a child born with imperforate anus after we successfully finished a posterior sagittal anorectoplasty. I told her that the operation went very well without any complications and I was very pleased with the outcome. In my mind, I was thinking about the technical success of repairing pathology of the congenital defect in her son and I expected her to be pleased as well… She looked at me and began to cry. She told me that she never thought that this day would come. She never thought it would be possible that someone would be able to fix her baby and give him a chance at a normal life and she thanked me profusely. It completely caught me off guard and I began to cry as well. It was that moment that made me truly appreciate the importance the work that we do in pediatric surgery missions: to make a difference in children’s lives that would otherwise not be possible.
— Dean M. Anselmo, MD, FAAP