Senior Akeweh Fondong works at Johns Hopkins hospital as a Certified Surgical Technologist. On most days, that means he assists surgeons in creating and maintaining a sterile field before and throughout the surgical procedure. He hands instruments during the case, and handles all the medications being administered during the operation. This requires him to anticipate surgeon’s needs based on the procedure, and depending on the number of residents or medical students present. The surgeries he typically works on include a variety of specialties including plastics, urology, ENT, GYN, and gastrointestinal.
About 2 years ago, the idea of the ground-breaking penis transplant surgery was discussed, a veteran had been injured fighting in Afghanistan. Akeweh sat in on the briefing about the patient, including a summary of the whole surgery. He signed up to be part of the team, not expecting that he was going to be called. On the day of the surgery, he was called to come in at 9 pm, and was there till 8 am the next morning working with the surgical team under the direction of Dr. W. P. Andrew Lee. “I was fortunate to be part of the team and happy I got to assist in it.” The successful procedure received national news coverage.