I've been back from Haiti for 2 weeks now. I dropped right back into the life of a busy surgical resident with all of the daily challenges and frustrations of trying to care for my patients in a hectic county hospital in Los Angeles -- except that now the memories from Haiti remind me that my moment to moment frustrations are nothing compared to those faced by the Haitian people I was lucky enough to meet.

I spent a week working in Hopital Bernard Mevs in Port au Prince which is jointly run by Project Medishare and two Haitian surgeons.

It has been six months since the earthquake. To the visitor it seems that the work of rebuilding Port au Prince has scarcely begun. Piles of rubble are everywhere. There did not appear to be any organized effort to clear it. Once in a while I saw a lone figure pulling rocks from a pile. One man told me he was still searching for the bodies of his family members. Tent cities have begun the metamorphosis into shanty towns. People carry on with the business of daily life as best they can. I saw women washing their children in water flowing freely down the gutters. Women selling dusty 3rd and 4th-hand goods, shoes with worn soles, T shirts with stains and holes, mangos, bananas, and dusty packets of crackers. I saw women selling water in single serving plastic pouches from baskets balanced precariously on their heads. Everyone seemed to be doing their best to just make do.

The patients and their families at the hospital were given meals twice daily, delivered directly from the UN. Within 30 minutes of delivery the food was all eaten. There was scarcely little food to be found at any other time. Everyone seemed very hungry.

Despite this there was an air of openness and warmth between people. People greeted each other with kisses and smiles and phrases like "Hello my princess! Hello my beauty!" When patients were in duress their neighboring patients or the families of other patients would offer hugs and caresses, even to total strangers. The generosity of warmth and affection was overwhelming and beautiful and contagious.

I tell everybody about my experience in Haiti that I put my drop in the ocean, this only can be comprehended when somebody sees with his own eyes the need in Haiti. But I also like to say that if everybody is participating we can fill that ocean.

Thank you to Dr. Aaron Harries from Alameda County Medical Center for sharing these photos with us.



Pictured in the slideshow are: Dr. Harries, Dr. Shankar LeVine, Dr. Molly Moore, Haitian translator Nixon at Project Medishare field hospital.

"By the day I left, they were starting to get running water. Every day it seemed like huge changes were happening. We were also working with a patient population that was no longer acute, traumatic injuries; we were dealing with subacute injuries of patients who had survived."

Even though weeks had passed since the earthquake, the medical needs were overwhelming.

"A lot of the people we treated were spinal chord injury patients who had been crushed by the rubble. Some of them actually had surgeries but it was months later than what you would get here," she said. "We were really fighting to do the best we could . . . It’s not clear if  this huge population that survived is going to be doing well in the future."

She described the emotional highs and lows. "There were a lot of women who lost their whole family who were pregnant, and were having babies," Dr. Leighton said. "Over a couple days there were six kids that died. It was really devastating for the staff -- you could hear mothers wailing. Then when a baby was born, everybody was really happy."

It was the first time many doctors had to grapple with saving one patient over another. Dr. Leighton recalled a patient who suffered through the night before being put on a ventilator, only to be taken off soon after because a younger patient needed it. 

"Picking one life over another put us in a place that was really hard, but also made you feel that you were doing something big,"  she said.

I have been a part of medical missions in the past, but nothing could have prepared me for the subacute needs of the Haitian people in the weeks after the disaster of January 12th.  As I am currently in a PGY-4 research year in General Surgery, and so my flexibility could not have been better for scheduling travel.  I did my research and applied through several organizations and Project Medishare, in conjunction with the University of Miami, was the most promising route.  With the financial and planning assistance of CIR and SEIU to get me to Miami, Project Medishare then took over, and the experience was life-changing!

The experience from a medical standpoint was awesome.  I worked with a Japanese trauma surgeon, a retired general surgeon who taught nonstop, an incredible trauma surgeon trained on the East Coast who managed to provide different perspectives in treatment every day, and several junior residents.  We even had a fantastic PA and medical student to complete the team.  I still don't know if I was just lucky to have such a well-functioning team or the circumstances promote a general sense of comaraderie.  I do know that the group of people I worked with (everyone at the hospital) were there to serve... and it was great!  No begging for tests, no complaints... only helping hands everywhere, support for the tough times, and more new friends than I can count.

I arrived to find "deluxe" camping accomodations and a well-planned medical compound.  Although filled to capacity with patients, my first seven days were spent with a full complement of medical personnel including ancillary staff and interpreters.  In some ways, this facility ran more smoothly and I had more assistance than back home at County!  My last three days were spent with a skeleton crew as most people had seven day stints and left.  I enjoyed my time so much that I elected to stay the additional days to smooth the signout and transition to the new team.

A quick word about the Haitian people.  I was lucky enough to meet a Pastor who brought in a woman from a rural town for evaluation and then offered to drive me around. I saw first-hand the resiliency, gratitude, and love for each other in the beautiful Haitian people.  Families units are tight, as expected, and closer after losing loved ones.  One security guard (hired by Medishare), lost his sister, brothers, parents and home in the earthquake.  After talking to him for a while, he is still in shock... moving on the only way he can after losing everything.