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Hey Everyone-

So I'm kind of new to this whole blog thing but I will give it a whirl. The purpose of this blog is to allow family, significant others, friends, class mates, professors (in no particular order) to follow our progress while carrying out three projects in Milot, Haiti. On June 4th (one week after the end of our classes), we leave from JFK airport to Turks and Caicos, where we must stay the night to wait for our connecting flight to Cap Haiten. Hopefully the luxurious Tortug' Air puddle-jumper will be able to hold all of us with our medical supplies, food supplements, malaria prophylaxis and step 1 prep books! After arriving in Haiti, we will spend approximately seven weeks living at L’Hopital Sacre Coeur, a hospital funded by the organization CRUDEM. Because it was unaffected during the earthquake on January 12, 2010, L’Hopital Sacre Coeur was one of the main hospitals to treat those injured by the devastating earthquake.  What is normally a 64 bed hospital turned into a 300 bed trauma hospital nearly overnight. This is depicted by the following painting on the wall of the hospital-

Tufts University has an agreement with L’Hopital Sacre Coeur and CRUDEM, which allows the University to send faculty and students to work at the hospital. For those of you not too familiar with the geography of Haiti, here is a map-

The Milot Valley is located approximately 10 miles south of Cap Haiten (seen on the northern coast of Haiti). Throughout the seven weeks, many Tufts faculty members will accompany us. While the exact list has not been disclosed to us, physicians and public health professors will help us with our projects and we will also shadow the physicians in the clinic of their specialty. 

I will let Maggie, Sophia and Andrew talk about their specific projects but I will give you a basic overview of Spencer, Alex and my project. With the help of our wonderful advisor Dr. Mark Pearlmutter (who was the leader of the Caritas Christi medical brigade who worked at L’Hopital Sacre Coeur in the aftermath of the earthquake) we are continuing the project of now third year medical students Graham, Adam and Lilly. Our end goal of the project is to create a functional EMS system around the current system of Community Health Agents (CHAs) in the Milot Valley. The Community Health Agents are employees of L’Hopital Sacre Coeur who provide many healthcare services to members of their villages. After Spencer and Alex traveled to Haiti during spring break and conducted many surveys to determine the medical knowledge local Community Health Agents, we determined the need to train the CHAs in screening, triage, and first aid. This will help us move toward our end goal. During the beginning of our trip, the plan (as of right now) is to observe many of the approximately thirty CHAs in their local villages in the first weeks. During the rest of the time, we plan to meet with the CHAs each week to teach them vital signs, adult screening, pediatric emergencies, trauma patient management, and prenatal screening. Also, to keep ourselves busy we will be conducting a blood pressure clinic in order to determine the prevalence of hypertension in the Milot Valley. It is important to note that while our group, Tufts in Haiti, will be participating in three different projects, we will all help each other throughout the process.

It is very important to recognize and thank the people who have made this project possible. First of all, we would like to thank the second years, Sally, Graham, Adam, and Lilly who not only founded this project, but were an incredible resource to help us plan our project. We would also like to thank Tuft's University Global Health Scholarship, Tuft's University Tisch Fund, and the Tufts University Alumni Fund which generously provided us with funds to make this trip possible. In the past month, we wrote to many commercial EMS companies and suppliers asking for medical supplies. Patriot Ambulance very generously donated our group many cervical collars for adults and pediatrics. Eascare Ambulance company also donated an extensive amount of supplies from bandages to supply bags. Thank you!

Lifeline Ambulance's CEO Brian Connor and Vice President of Clinical and Quality Assurance Ted White have been an INVALUABLE resource to us. Not only did they travel to Haiti with Spencer and Alex during March but they have offered us countless resources to make this project possible. Brian Connor and Lifeline Ambulance will donate two mobile clinics which will allow increased access to healthcare in the Milot Valley. Lifeline will also provide each CHA with a bag, stethoscope and blood pressure cuff. Now we just need to figure out how to get all of this stuff down there!

Woah! That was a lot longer than expected! But, I hope it gives you an idea of what our project is about!  Once we arrive in Haiti, we will post on this blog regularly, so make sure you check it!

Eric