A six-person medical response team from the Keck School of Medicine of USC recently returned from a mission to deliver supplies and assist with critical care of victims of the catastrophic 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Nepal on April 25.

The team provided care at Nepal Orthopaedic Hospital in Kathmandu and at Amppipal Hospital in Gorkha, near the epicenter of the quake.

The USC team spent about a week in Nepal, departing for home shortly before a 7.3 magnitude aftershock that struck about 90 miles from the epicenter of the first earthquake.

The response was spearheaded by Keck School of Medicine Dean Carmen A. Puliafito, MD, MBA, and Demetrios Demetriades, MD, chief, division of trauma and surgical critical care, Department of Surgery,  Keck School of Medicine, along with other members of the trauma and surgical critical care team. Both the Keck School of Medicine and the LAC +USC Medical Center provided medical supplies for the trip.

All members of the Nepal team were part of a similar effort in 2010 after an earthquake in Haiti. The Nepal group includes two critical care/trauma surgeons, an emergency department physician, an anesthesiologist, a nurse anesthetist and a registered nurse. The trip to Nepal is scheduled for nine days.

Members of the medical response team: Lydia Lam, MD, trauma surgeon and assistant professor, Department of Surgery; Ramona Paolim, registered nurse, LAC+USC Medical Center; Karen Kim Embrey, CRNA, assistant professor, Department of Anesthesiology; Edward Newton, MD, interim chief and professor, Department of Emergency Medicine; team leader Kenji Inaba, MD, trauma surgeon and associate professor, Department of Surgery; and Shihab Sugeir, M.D., assistant professor, Department of Anesthesiology.

— Leslie Ridgeway

Ed Newton, MD, examines a patient in Kathmandu.

Ramona Paolim and Shihab Sugeir sort through supplies the team brought to Gorkha in Nepal from the Keck School and L.A. County + USC Medical Center.

Members of the Nepal medical response team who attended the Keck School of Medicine commencement: USC medical response team: Ramona Paolim, Karen Kim Embrey, Edward Newton, Shihab Sugeir and Kenji Inaba. Lydia Lam of the team was unable to attend.

The medical response team from Keck Medicine of USC answers questions about their relief mission after returning from Nepal on May 12.

USC medical response team: Lydia Lam, Ramona Paolim, Karen Kim Embrey, Edward Newton, Kenji Inaba, Shihab Sugeir.