Charity & Medical Missions
Dr. Keojampa volunteers a significant amount of his time with the Lao Rehabilitation Foundation. He has volunteered on international medical missions to Honduras and Laos. Dr. Keojampa has led a surgical team of Lao surgeons and anesthesiologists to perform cleft lip/palate, facial reconstructive, thyroid, and ENT surgeries in Laos with the Lao Rehabilitation Foundation. He helps to organize mission trips year round and provides online medical consultations with the physicians and surgeons in Laos.
See below for more information about our past missions.
January 2014 –ENT/Thyroid/Plastic Surgery
It took 4 months to prepare the mission and to register patients (hyperthyroid and cleft lip/palate). For hyperthyroid cases, blood test T3, T4, TSH and EKG were done prior to the arrival of the team. Patients were examined before surgery by experts with modern equipment. Surgery was performed when deemed necessary and in order of priority. Post surgery follow up was provided. 75 patients were examined, treated by medicine and advised. 12 cases were selected for surgery (8 thyroidectomy and 4 cyst/tumor).
Click to download the Final reports of the ENT mission at Oudomxay hospital of January 2014: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5.
June 2013 ENT/Thyroid/Plastic Surgery
LRF funded and organized the surgical mission from June 11-19th, 2013. Winchester Hospital (Boston) and Queen of the Valley Hospital (Napa) donated medical supplies. Ethicon donated medical sutures. America-Cares donated the anesthetics. A glidescope videolaryngoscope by Verathon Medical was on loan for use on this mission. Dr. Luc Janssens, president of the Foundation, organized the mission in conjunction with Dr. Phetsamone Indara, of Oudomxay Provincial Hospital. This year again, Dr. Keo Phommarat, Lao anesthesiologist and Dr. Bounour, Lao thyroid surgeon from Setthathirath Hospital joined Dr. Kyle Keojampa from USA for this yearly ongoing mission.
The primary focus of this mission was to collaborate with the Lao physicians and surgeons to provide experience with thyroid disorders and thyroid surgery. This mission required continued yearlong collaboration with the Lao doctors to treat patients with thyroid conditions and prepare appropriate patients for surgery.
Our goals were met as we successfully treated 126 patients afflicted with thyroid disorders such as Toxic Nodular Goiters, Grave’s Disease, and Hyperthyroidism and provided thyroid surgery for 14 patients without any complications.
Click here for the ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat) Oudomxay Provincial Hospital report (Part 1)
Click here for the ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat) Oudomxay Provincial Hospital report (Part 2)
February 2012 ENT/Plastic Surgery
The primary focus of this mission was to collaborate with the Lao physicians and surgeons to provide experience with complex operations so that they can continue the work after the team has left. Over seven days we operated on 30 patients. We trained Lao surgeons, anesthesiologists and nurses. All operations were successful and there were no complications. In the past, many of these complex operations were sent to the capital Vientiane or Thailand, which did not provide the local Lao surgeons with the opportunity to develop surgical skills in this area.
February 2011 – ENT/Plastic Surgery
This 7 day mission took place from 2-8 February, 2011. ENT service is an important and necessary health care component of the provincial hospital, however, it has limited functioning due to lack of specialist’s skills and surgical equipment. The LRF provided medical care to local patients and training to local staff. This mission examined all registered patients, with no regard to gender, age, ethnicity and religion, free of charge, with a total of 224 patients seen (179 females) – with 7 different surgery types performed.
Click here to download the Feb2011-Report of ENT surgery at UDX hospital (439KB).
Personal Medical Mission
February 22nd, 2011 | Published in Laos
U.S. Facial Plastic Surgeon Kyle Keojampa, MD and his wife U.S. General Surgeon Melanie Gainsbury, MD traveled on a medical mission with the Lao Rehabilitation Foundation for cleft lip/palate and ENT surgery. For Kyle the trip was professionally and personally significant: