And while the kids were at the Zoo...the Doctors were in conference today.
Belize is currently, and for the first time, playing host to the Caribbean College of Surgeons for the group's 21st annual General meeting.
It's a gathering of the region's surgeons for the exchange of knowledge, sharing of ideas, and even the performance of a couple complicated surgeries that could not normally have been done in Belize.
7News stopped in at the Biltmore today where the conference was taking place to hear from two surgeons who told us what Belize stands to gain by hosting the regional medical College:
Dr. Cawich, President, Caribbean College Of Surgeons
"The Caribbean College of surgeons is a professional association of all surgeons across the entire English-speaking Caribbean, this group has specialists and sub-specialists that range from all categories of surgery, from neuro-surgery to orthopaedics to liver and pancreatic surgery, and so this is the Mecca of surgical minds in the region basically if something goes wrong from a surgical perspective and the guys in this room can't do it. It will not, it can't be done anywhere in the world. That is the level of expertise that exists here and we are, this is our annual symposium, our annual conference where we go to a different Caribbean territory, every single year for several reasons, one is to engage the local surgical community, the surgical community in Belize to remind them of all the developments in surgery, any modern equipment or techniques that may have been involved. It also builds cross fertilization so that the surgeons in Belize can have a link to the surgeons in the Caribbean so that the entire Caribbean is elevated at the same time as a whole instead of, you know little pockets remaining behind and little pockets being elevated and most of the college can give a tangible contribution to the nation of Belize and as an example the members of the Caribbean college actually operated at the KHMH on Wednesday to provide services that were not available locally for Belizean patients at no cost to the government, and no cost to the Karl Heusner, and no cost to the paitient, you know it is service that was provided for the people of Belize by the Caribbean college of which we are very proud."
Dr. Lisa Johnson, General & Trauma Surgeon
"I would like to say that what we are doing here is par for the course for medicine, this is what, this is an integral part of medicine and it has been for decades and, um, one can even say that it has, that we are doing something quite ancient here that of getting together looking at each other and saying what are our best practices, what do you have to add to the known information, what are you doing in your neck of the woods. We live we all come from countries that are resource strapped as it relates to health care and surgeons by definition are innovators, we are innovators, we are inventors, all the tools that you see used in surgery were invented by other surgeons, and so in the Caribbean, our inventions are not only about the actual tools, it is about making sure that each patient that we see is getting the best possible care and having the best practice and having the best possible care is not something that you hide, it is something you share because as physicians we swore an oath and if you have been to a proper medical school, you would have been given an oath to take at the end and that oath is very important and when you are in a field in which you're making life and death decisions it becomes even more important."
"So it is, it is, camaraderie, collegiality, professionalism but all aimed at providing a standard of living and a level of service to all of our patients throughout the region."
