FilmAid International provides the children of Haiti what many doctors can’t bring earthquake survivors — a moment to forget about the pain and suffering the last six months has brought. Dr. Jon LaPook reports.
Click HERE to watch the CBS Evening News video.
People who’ve been diagnosed cancer can be heartened by the results of a study that will be presented June 5 at the upcoming American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting. The researchers found that the practice of yoga helped cancer survivors improve sleep quality and reduce fatigue.
The lead researcher, Dr. Karen Mustian, professor of Radiation Oncology and Community and Preventive Medicine at the University of Rochester in New York, followed 410 patients who had already completed treatment for cancer but who experienced sleep disturbance that required medication. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*
A premature baby and a woman giving birth must share the only oxygen tank in a hospital in the poorest part of Haiti, Port de Paix. Dr. Jon LaPook recounts the harrowing experience.
Dr. Jon LaPook visits one of Haiti’s medical clinics nearly three months after the country’s devastating earthquake:
Small Miracles In Haiti
Seven days ago, at a mission in the north of Haiti, I watched a nurse remove oxygen from a premature baby boy in order to give it to a woman in labor. The heartbeat of the baby who was about to be delivered had dropped dangerously low and there was only one working oxygen machine.
Perhaps the cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck or there was some other problem. A Caesarian section — which can quickly and safely deliver a baby who is in trouble — was not an option. The public hospital was at least an hour’s drive away over bumpy roads.
These kinds of cruel triage decisions are commonplace in Haiti and existed long before the earthquake struck on January 12th. The poorest country in the Western Hemisphere has never had an effective public health system. Thousands of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) — by some counts more than 10,000 — are trying to plug holes in the ship. What’s really needed is a new ship. Read more »
I can’t get the stories of Haiti out of my mind. A patient showed up at the Port au Prince hospital ward with a massive left sided paralysis: an obvious stroke. This 48-year-old woman had collapsed the day before and was now accompanied by her three grown daughters, who were most attentive and worried. I examined her in the bed with other patients and families gathered around. (There is no sense of privacy and even an exam seems to be everyone’s business in Haiti). One daughter spoke broken English, but I had a good translator that helped me get the information I needed. It was a sad story. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*
Dr. Jan Gurley just returned from a mission trip to Haiti, 5 weeks after the earthquake hit. In this audio clip, she relays a horrific first-hand account of the current realities of life in Port Au Prince. With no running water, bathrooms, or place to shelter - and packed into a field with 100,000 people - some young women are choosing to stop drinking water in an effort to commit suicide.
Dr. Gurley describes the loss of human dignity associated with the crisis in Haiti, including a near stampede when sanitary napkins were offered in a crowd of women. She explains that the place is becoming dangerous - and the screams of women being raped in the night fill the dark air. In the day time, people huddle together for safety while the stench of rotting corpses surrounds them. With the rainy season approaching, and tent cities perched precariously on land-slide prone hills, Dr. Gurley predicts a second wave of disease, violence, despair, and death in Haiti.
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Prior to departing for my assignment in Haiti for International Medical Corps, I didn’t have much time to pack, so wasn’t able to bring everything I might need. However, I was able to carry a few items that proved quite useful. First and foremost was a new EMS-type trauma shears. Scott Forman, MD of Adroit Innovation, LLC has created a very functional titanium shears in which one finger loop has been replaced by a carabiner, so the shears can easily hang from a belt or other loop. I used them all the time to cut tape, change dressings, slice through wire, and other assorted tasks. I just purchased one for each member of the Stanford team. Read more »
This post, A First Responder’s Top 4 Items Of Medical Equipment: Lessons From Haiti, was originally published on Healthine.com by Paul S Auerbach M.D., M.S..
Oh, good. Everything’s under control. The Scientologists are there.
Amid the mass of aid agencies piling in to help Haiti quake victims is a batch of Church of Scientology “volunteer ministers”, claiming to use the power of touch to reconnect nervous systems….
Some doctors at the hospital are skeptical. One US doctor, who asked not to be named, snorted: “I didn’t know touching could heal gangrene.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*
We found out today that we are going to ship out tomorrow. My feelings are certainly mixed. There is an incredible amount of work to be done here – we have only contributed to the first wave of what is necessary. This may sound strange, but I cannot remember the details of much of what we did the first three days, when we were functioning on hyperdrive in a battlefield setting. My recollections become detailed after the third day, when we were able to see only four or five patients at a time, and we stopped triaging amputees to the operating room.
Now the hospital has been substantially augmented. Teams of foreign (to Haiti) surgeons have left to go home, because the operations to be performed now are largely orthopedic and plastic surgery, as well as specialty cases. Sadly, there are scores of patients with spinal fractures who are paralyzed, and little can be done for them this far out from the initial injury. Children continue to break our hearts. I had a small child who is a triple amputee offer me his cracker with his remaining hand. One can only pray that the memories he carries of this tragedy are erased swiftly, that he is assisted in his rehabilitation, and that his life improves. All of these will, of course, be hard to achieve. Read more »
This post, Leaving Haiti: Small Child - A Triple Amputee - Offers MD A Cracker With His Remaining Hand, was originally published on Healthine.com by Paul S Auerbach M.D., M.S..
My friends at the American College of Surgeons’ Operation Giving Back have come up with a really smart strategy to collect as much information as possible about surgical cases in Haiti. Thanks to a new data collecting tool, every surgeon who volunteers in Haiti can contribute to this case log. The potential result will be one of the most comprehensive registers of surgical care in a disaster situation. Depending on what we find, I think that this data could make a big difference in preparing surgical responses for future missions.
This is an example of crowd-sourcing at its best.
Here is a summary statement from ACS: Read more »
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