Home > Medical > Special Projects > Medical Trips & Exchanges > History We are truly grateful for the many highly skilled and passionate volunteers who offer their time and talents to go to China to heal children on behalf of Love Without Boundaries. Whether our volunteers have been doctors, nurses, or essential baby rockers, we have been fortunate to find devoted volunteers whose skills are only matched by their generous hearts. History April 5, 2009 – April 2009 was the start of a new program called Medical Exchanges where doctors from the USA traveled to Shanghai's Children's Fudan Hospital to lecture and teach new techniques and skills and Chinese Doctors will be traveling to the USA to participate in Medical Conferences and training sessions, all for the benefit of advanced medical care and surgery for the orphans in China. While Fudan is skilled at performing cleft lip surgery, they wished to learn more about techniques for repairing cleft palates and for repairing more of the rare complex facial clefts. Founded in 1952 and associated with Fudan University. Fudan's Children's Hospital is one of the top Children's hospitals in China providing Pediatric care. Twenty-two children from orphanages throughout China traveled to Shanghai and over the course of 5 days received surgery, Dr Ness, a cranial facial surgeon from Minnesota, repaired their cleft palates, complex cleft lips and a facial cleft, while teams of Fudan Children's Hospital doctors observed and participated in the operations. September 2008 – A LWB team led by once again by Minnesota doctors John Ness, M.D. & Cris Martin, M.D. traveled to Hefei, Anhui in Sept 2008 to partner with Anhui Children's hospital to bring smiles to 25 children. The children came from Fujian, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Beijing, Henan, Sichuan and Anhui to have their cleft lips or palates repaired by the very skilled Dr Ness. The doctors & nurses have a tremendous love for children and constantly look for ways to use their skills to help others. Nurses; Yvonne Leedahl (MN), Terri McCaffrey (MN), Shane Thompson (IN), and Wendy Peterson (KS) rounded out the Medical Team. In addition to the medical staff we were fortunate to be joined by volunteers Linda Phillips (CA), and Paige Martin (MN). Several of our China LWB directors and managers joined us in Hefei , to help us with translation and the hundreds of little things that go into making a medical mission trip run smoothly. The trip took place over the busy holiday of National Day in China and sometimes it seemed our babies were tucked into every corner of the hospital and even in the halls at one point. To read more about this exciting trip on our blog click here. Just one month later in October 2008 Dr. Lisa Buckmiller, a world-renowned Vascular Anomalies Specialist at Arkansas Children's Hospital, and a team of seven medical volunteers traveled back to Hefei, Anhui. The primary purpose of this trip is to help children with hemangiomas, a vascular birthmark which is usually benign but can be fast growing and cause permanent disfigurement if left untreated. Because of the limited numbers of doctors worldwide that perform this type of surgery this was an incredible learning opportunity for Anhui Children's very talented surgeons. Dr. Buckmiller is a very versatile surgeon, and we never have a shortage of children who need our help. Children from the Anhui cleft home and other orphanages came from to have their cleft lips or palates repaired by Dr Buckmiller and Dr Glade with the assistance the Anhui Children's Hospital surgeons. Yuan, a child who had stolen the heart of the volunteers on the Shanghai Medical Mission in 2007 when she had a tumor removed from her forehead, traveled to Hefei to have her very large cheek tumor removed. She was so excited to have further surgery to normalize her appearance. In November of 2007 – Love Without Boundaries teamed up with some of China's finest doctors and nurses at Shanghai Children's Medical Center. Our U.S. team was made up of 16 volunteers lead by surgeon Dr. Lisa Buckmiller. During the time we were there surgery was done on 28 cleft lip babies and one cute little girl with a hemangioma. We also were privileged to have dermatologist Dr. Bonnie Straka with us and we were able to treat 6 children with skin issues. In addition to the U.S. team we had an abundance of help from our wonderful LWB supporters in Shanghai. This trip was unique in that the capable hospital staff provided the majority of post operative care. This cooperative approach to care was very successful and rewarding. Special thanks to Dr. Wu, Dr. Bao, and the staff of SCMC. November 2006 – Love Without Boundaries organized and sponsored the training of three doctors from China, from Beijing Children's, Shanghai Children's Medical Center, and Zhejiang Children's, to go attend a weeklong training on Pediatric Anorectal and Colorectal Surgical Problems sponsored by Dr. Alberto Pena at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. Here the doctors received training on comprehensive surgical and management techniques. In addition to hearing lectures, the surgerons watched live demonstrations in surgical repairs of the most common defects. Love Without Boundaries organized and sponsored the training of three doctors from China, from Beijing Children's, Shanghai Children's Medical Center, and Zhejiang Children's, to go attend a weeklong training on Pediatric Anorectal and Colorectal Surgical Problems sponsored by Dr. Alberto Pena at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. Here the doctors received training on comprehensive surgical and management techniques. In addition to hearing lectures, the surgeons watched live demonstrations in surgical repairs of the most common defects. October 2006 – took us to Hefei, Anhui. In cooperation with Anhui Children's Hospital 76 children with cleft lip and cleft palate were helped over six days of surgeries. Lead surgeons for the week were Dr. Lisa Buckmiller, Dr. John Ness, and Dr. Christopher Tolan. In addition 38 other volunteers made up of anesthesiologists, pediatricians, surgical, PACU and ward nurses and a host of support personnel came to serve the children. Special acknowledgements must go to Anhui Children's Hospital and their marvelous staff for their care and love for the children and to the Anhui Provincial Civil Affairs for their support of the trip. September 2005 was our largest trip ever. 76 volunteers went to Luoyang, Henan and together they were able to see 106 children healed. Lead surgeons on this trip were Dr. Mark Ray, Dr. Lisa Buckmiller, Dr. Louis Argenta, and Dr. Lisa David. This team also included dentist Dr. Simmons and Dr. Pfohl. We were very grateful for the support of Director Pei, Henan Civil Affairs, and the Red Cross Hospital for their help during this endeavor. May 2004 – Love Without Boundaries sent it's first cleft surgical team to Shantou, Guangdong in May 2004. Approximately 20 volunteers including the late Dr. John Padilla worked to heal 45 orphans who were born with cleft lip or cleft palate. These children were from orphanages in several provinces thought out China. These first surgeries were performed in cooperation with First People's Hospital in Shantou. Everyone who participated on that first trip agreed that it was a life-changing experience. Due to the success of that first trip Love Without Boundaries has sent a medical team back to China each year. It has always been our hope that as a result of their surgeries, these children will have the best possible chance for adoption. We have followed many of our patients over the years and are happy to report that the majority are now living with their forever families in locations all over the world.