Bare Minimum

"Swag bags for the Syrians. Some, um, sweatshirts and baseball caps, post-its. Ooh, really cool pen lights," April lists as she goes through a bag.

Ivy nods, "Those are nice."

Webber asks, "You're sending post-its to Syria?"

"You're really going to question the meaning of post-its at this hospital?" Ivy asks.

"Yeah, I'm working with doctors aid international. We've flown in two Syrian doctors. They're general practitioners, but now with the war, they've been recruited to staff the field hospitals. They're getting advanced trauma training with Seattle Pres, and they're here for a crash course in basic surgical skills," Owen ignores Ivys comment.

"They need to learn what they can do quick and dirty," Ivy says.

"They rope you in? Which must mean that..." Webber trails off as he asks Robbins.

She nods, "Yeah. Yeah, they're losing a lot of kids."

Webber tips his mug, "Godspeed."

"All right, let's get this stuff with the boxes of supplies we're sending back with them," Owen tells Ivy.

"Ah, so Bailey got her genome thing funded. You got this thing funded. I need to get my cartilage project bankrolled while we still got bank," Callie tells them.

Ivy nods, "Write a proposal. Don't start bugging board members. Especially Jackson and I."

Callie laughs as she leaves at the same time as Edwards enters, "Dr. Hunt? Dr. Averys recombination on your burn patient."

Arizona whispers to Ivy, "How are you handling all the burn patients? Cause I know I have a tough time with those who struggle to walk. I can't imagine how you are with-"

"Um, I'm fine. Totally and completely fine. Ready?" Ivy changes the subject.

They pack the stuff up and leave April to talk with Edwards.

○○○○

Owen talks to the two doctors, "Okay, we're gonna try as closely as we can to replicate your circumstances in the field hospital. The most important skills you need in a wartime situation is controlling bleeding. Normally we'd use lasers and argon beam coagulators, but as you can see, for now, we're only using the contents of this tray."

One speaks in a language Ivy doesn't understand to the other, she looks between them, "Is something wrong?"

"Uh, we, um, before had all of these things, but recently the supply trucks cannot reach us, and the electricity is unreliable, so many of our instruments, we-we cannot use so if you want to, um, replicate our circumstances, we may need to adjust this slightly," they tell them.

"Please, we're here to make this work for you," Ivy nods.

"Thank you. Um..." They start getting rid of some of the supplies, "This is more right."

The other one says, "Also.." and turns off all the lights until they are standing in pitch, black, darkness. Until he turns on a pen light and holds it over the patient, "Now we go."

Ivy looks around, this is going to be harder than they thought. Those conditions are worse than they ever could have imagined.

○○○○

She leads the group to a supply closet, "We're gonna send you back with a bunch of equipment, but if supplies aren't reaching you and there's no electricity... we're gonna have to find another way."

Robbins nods, "Yeah, so, um, take a look around and see what items you do have left in the field hospital, and, uh, put it in the box."

They start looking around as Ross runs in, "Dr. Hunt, can I borrow you?"

○○○○

Ivy, Arizona, April and Hunt walked in and got the attendings attention, "Thank you for coming, everyone. And before you ask, no you don't have a choice of whether to stay or not. And sorry we had to rearrange your schedule, but this is important."

Arizona takes over, "We've got two Syrian doctors here. They used to be G.P.s, but now they're operating in a field hospital in a war zone."

"We were planning on teaching them surgical procedures they could do with limited resources-" Owen starts.

"But they have about as many resources as we did out in the woods," Ivy finished that thought.

Arizona nods, "Yeah. Pretty much."

Alex suggests, "Just give em more stuff."

Webber argues, "When it runs out in two weeks, they'll be right back where they started. They want to help them function with what they know they have."

"Which is this," April gestures to the box.

"So...we need to be able to do the procedures on this list using only what is in this box," Ivy hands them the list.

"Are you kidding me? There's no way," Cristina denies.

Ivy shakes her head, "There has to be. I mean, we've had to do surgeries with the bare minimum before. We've got about a 75% survival rate with it."

○○○○

"Okay, so they can debride the wounds with a basic instrument set, but now they're faced with a huge risk of infection," Callie tells them.

"Well, I guess wound vacs are out of the question then," Jackson comments.

April suggests, "Simple wet to dry dressings might work?"

Ivy shakes her head, "No, they'd have to change those out three times a day. The entire gauze supply would be gone with one patient."

"Sugar."

"I didn't have my coffee this morning so I may have heard you wrong, but did you say sugar?" Ivy asks Webber.

"Yes. It's not in the box, but they may have it around. It's an osmotic dressing that allows you to avoid multiple dressing changes," Webber clarifies.

Ivy nods, "Apes, go find out if they still have sugar."

April runs off as Jackson slides in next to Ivy. Cristina asks them, "Does anybody have any betadine?"

"I just have bleach," Jackson tells her.

"Yeah, that'll work."

Ivy tosses it back towards her brother as Hunt comes in, "All right. So anybody ready to start teaching?"

Callie nods, "Uh, me and Ivy. We can do fracture repairs."