Photo: Left to Right: Faces from MSF’s Amman project: Ali Abdel al-Kharim, a 13-year-old Iraqi from Baghdad, was severely burned on his face, arms, and legs when a car bomb exploded as he walked to school; Khanda Faraj Mohammed, 27, from Kirkuk, sustained severe burns on her neck, chest, stomach, arms, and hands when a car bomb exploded at the market where she shopped; Waleed Azziz Mohammed, 26, from Dahouk, was badly burned on his face and neck when he was hit by a rocket. Jordan 2011 © J.B. Russell

Field Journal: A Regional Surgical Center

Patricia Kahn, MSF-USA’s medical editor, recently visited MSF’s surgical program in Amman, Jordan, which treats patients from throughout the Middle East.

Patients in the Amman program are civilians wounded by bombs, explosions, or gunshots in conflicts across the region. They have severe, complicated injuries that were not treated right away, or couldn’t be treated properly in their home country. Injuries such as bones that aren’t just broken, but shattered. Burns over much of the body. Many also have life-threatening bone infections, often with antibiotic-resistant bacteria.