Title: Mahosot Surgery I
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 18” x 27″
Date: March 2015

About: Mahosot Surgery I is the first of three paintings inspired by my time spent shadowing physicians at Mahosot Hospital in the capital city of Vientiane, Laos. The subject of this painting is a surgery performed during a 2-week medical mission by foreign maxillofacial surgeons. The patient was 28 years old and had a large tumor deforming the left side of his face. Rather than remove the tumor, the team decided to perform a less invasive procedure, changing the size and position of his nose to give him a more normal appearance. Opting for a cosmetic surgery over a potentially life-saving resection represents the difficult decisions traveling medical teams must make to ensure the post-operative safety of their patients recovering in a low-resource health system.