Patient Organization Outside

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On Fridays, there are typically anywhere from 90 to 130 patients waiting outside the clinic, and their families.

The First Contact Team, typically from the the Ensenada Centenaria Rotary usually arrive early, somewhere between 7:30 and 8 a.m.

Their job is to:

  • organize the patients into one of several groups (see below)
  • help patients fill out a registration form and a medical history form
  • line patients against the north wall of the clinic, organized by alternating groups
  • separate dental-only patients from cleft patients. These patients are not required to fill out forms, and are not lined up against the wall. They are called into the dental portion of the clinic separately, and are not registered as described on this page.

The four groups cleft patients are organized into are:

  • Group 1 -- Patients who are less than 1 year of age, or are a new cleft patient
  • Group 2 -- Cleft patients who have had surgery, and are being treated by Orthodontists
  • Group 3 -- All other cleft patients
  • Group 4 -- Patients who have been identified by surgery screening as priority patients. Generally, surgery screening will provide the names of these patients via a list of some kind handed to the persons organizing the patients outside.

As mentioned previously, cleft patients belonging to the four groups are lined up against the north wall of the clinic. The groups alternate, 3 or 4 patients from group 1, followed by 3 or 4 from group 2, and so on. Generally, we do this so that orthodontists, pre-surgery screeners, and dentists have a pool of patients to draw from at the start of the clinic. If we had only ortho patients in the line, for example, this would cause delays in getting patients to the dentists and surgery screeners.

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