A Shout Out to Pascal

This is from Pascal Goldschmidt, Dean of the University of Miami School of Medicine. A thousand more like this dude and medicine in the States would look very, very different....

http://med.miami.edu/haiti-relief/#dean

Dean's Report from Haiti

Dear Friends,

Our doctors, nurses and staff are doing God's work in Haiti and at home! One week after the devastating earthquake that wrecked the capital city of Port-Au-Prince, our team has established an invaluable urgent care center where hundreds of patients have found refuge, help and life-saving care.

Lying on stretchers, the patients are getting round-the-clock, top-notch trauma care that stabilizes their fractures, provides wound care for skin injuries, burn care, eye care, care for lung injuries and acute kidney failure, etc. Because all urgent care hospitals are full, we are partnering with other nations to exchange patients according to the specific technical prowess of each center. A 13-year-old girl whose flailed chest was wounded by a falling rock needed plastic surgery to cover her rib cage. Her skin, bones and chest muscles had been destroyed by the trauma over a patch the size of the palm of her hand, and her lung movement could be seen through the window of her chest. We took her to the "Corps Medical des Forces de Defense d'Israel" (the Israeli medical camp), where such specialized surgery was available, and traded her for a young man with an arm fracture and a severe back wound, whom we took back in a makeshift ambulance to our camp.

The Haitians are stoic. From the woman who climbs a mountain with four gallons of fresh water on her head for her family and neighbors, to the patients and their families who wait patiently for care, watching the expressions on the faces of their doctors and nurses, they give us a lesson in courage that will be remembered forever! Instructively, right after the earthquake they went back to their regular habits. For food and drink, they go to the local market. For care, they go to their regular hospital. Hence, if the United Nations is to be successful in bringing loads of food and water, they need to be distributed at sites where people go for such needs. The same applies for hospitals: those hospitals that have been wrecked need to be reconstituted with urgent care centers where the old hospital used to be.

. . .

Pascal