By Debra Wood, RN, contributor
March 3, 2010 - Physicians and nurses from across the country have headed to Haiti, knowing their skills and knowledge could make a difference to the thousands injured in the January 12, 7.0-magnitude earthquake that hit the nation. Many found the magnitude of the suffering and long-term needs almost overwhelming.
“I was fortunate to assist for a few days, but the children I helped have a lifetime of challenges ahead of them,” said Christopher Carr, M.D., a general surgeon in Bremerton, Washington, who works independent contractor assignments scheduled through leading locum tenens agency Staff Care, an AMN Healthcare company.
Carr spent five days in Haiti with Children of the Nations’ Hands on Haiti project. The immediate need was surgical, and partly remains so, as large wounds continue to heal. However, Carr said, the long-term need for the thousands of patients with amputations and other debilitating injuries will be rehabilitative and difficult to fill.
Carr went on, “[I went] to help because I try to live by the philosophy of ‘Other gives purpose to self.’ This also creates the biggest internal conflict for me, because my ability to help was brief. Yet the need will be great for so long, as it is for millions of people around the world.”
Lawrence Lynch, M.D. is another Staff Care affiliated physician, a surgeon located in Savannah, Georgia. Lynch ran into a friend picking up supplies at an outdoor store and decided to join him on a week-long mission organized by Savannah Christian Church. Under the direction of the International Red Cross, he and fellow volunteers established a general clinic and treated more than 300 people with minor injuries.
Lynch and his medical team then traveled to Cap Haitien, north of Port-au-Prince, near the earthquake’s epicenter, and assisted with caring for the patients in the hospital, as fellow providers set fractures, performed amputations and prepared major fractures for care elsewhere.
“There were no general surgery patients,” Lynch said. “Most of them with severe injuries had died or been transported.”
One family brought a child with a head injury, who had been found piled atop several dead babies. When someone noticed the child breathing, they brought him to Lynch’s team. The child survived.
“That touches your heart,” Lynch said. “It was an amazing experience, very primitive hospital, in terms of supplies. We did a major trauma case with a fluorescent bulb and a reflector.”
Area residents had no shelter and little food, just what they received from humanitarian efforts. There was open sewage in the street. People were surviving on practically nothing.
“Haiti is a very interesting country,” Lynch said. “They are wonderful people and are just so nice.”
Lynch said it took him about a week to pull his thoughts together about the experience. He said he felt deeply moved by the people and how they lost the little they had in the earthquake.
“Our group made a difference,” Lynch said. “Everyone contributed in different ways.”
A neurosurgeon from Harligen, Texas, invited Staff Care affiliated orthopaedic surgeon Donald Vargas, M.D., to make the trip to Haiti with a team from Valley Baptist Hospital. Everyone paid their way and had to chip in to keep the generator running at the hospital in Fort Liberte.
“The people with casualties were happy we were there,” Vargas recalled. “The Haitians are very stoic.”
Vargas and his team tried to avoid doing surgery, except where absolutely necessary due to the high infection rates. They asked for little analgesia and accepted that the hospital closed during the night, leaving them alone with their families. Vargas called his personal experience a spiritual high, but on a more global scale, he indicated the response was disappointing, unorganized and showed a need for better preparation to deal with similar disasters in the future.
Guesly Dessieux, D.O., placed at Santiam Memorial Hospital in Stayton, Oregon, led an 18-doctor team from the hospital to Haiti for a 10-day mission to provide medical relief. He remarked that recovery will take a long time.
Staff Care affiliated physician Rex McConnell, a family physician located in Nicholasville, Kentucky, headed for Haiti with Mission Aviation Fellowship in February, planning to spend two weeks. He had completed a medical mission there in 2005 and felt compelled to return.
“I find it rewarding and interesting,” McConnell said. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
AMN Healthcare is proud to work with such outstanding individuals who go above and beyond the call of duty by volunteering their own time and money to help others in need.
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