Flecher's Perspective on Making a Difference

Flecher Fleudujon in the operating room at
Can Tho Central General Hospital.

Flecher has been working with IEP for ten years as our videographer, but he's much more than the guy behind the camera. He's one of the people who keeps coming back to make a difference -- and because of what this experience brings into his life.

He says it much better than I can...

If ten years ago you asked me if I would ever work in a hospital operating room, let alone one in Vietnam, I would have laughed and thought you were kidding. I'm now on my fifth medical mission with the IEP team and spending full days in the O.R. has become second nature. I can even use some surgical terminology. 

I'm the IEP team videographer. I have made a full documentary about IEP as well as numerous shorter videos for the web that not only showcase the incredible transformations that some of our patients experience, but follow the journey that the team endures to make an IEP medical mission happen. 

I'm grateful to be a part of this team for so many reasons. The strongest is simply the feeling I get when I see a family show up to the screening day with a young son or daughter who has a severe deformity that I know the team can help. I visualize the future of that child's life after the surgery and the long-term effects that having their feet pointing foreword can achieve. 

I think I feel the best when I'm working of service to others. I'm also at my best when acting as a part of a team. When an IEP mission is in full swing, the level of teamwork runs at an extremely high degree. Every role is as important as the others. It's in these moments that I feel most in rhythm with life and the world, the universe... everything.

In my humble role as videographer, my job is to notice the nuances of the trip as a whole. I try to get shots that relate the story for anyone who was not a witness to be able to get a feel for the work we do here. The trip itself is one aspect, but I also see a macro peek into the eyes and even the hearts of our patients. It becomes impossible for me not to empathize fully with what they're going through. On a certain level, I know exactly what is happening for them because I have struggled with a deformity in my life that has brought me, more then once, to an operating table because of it. 

Maybe, as I sit in the hallway of the operating room in Vietnam watching today's patients getting rolled in and the doctors prepping, this is is my moment to thank all the doctors who have utilized their expertise to try and help me. And if I may be so bold as to speak for the patients that the doctors of IEP are treating at this very moment -- and those they have treated over the past sixteen years -- I want to say thank you. And another huge thank you to the donors who are also part of the team and make this all happen. Thank you.