The Calm Before the Storm

We woke up to a cool, minimally sunny Sunday this morning. The slight wind and cloudy skies assured us to expect rain later in the day. Dad (Dr. H) introduced the group to the Adventiste tradition of a morning meeting as a means of centering our thoughts, preparing for the day, and indulging in a long and thoughtful prayer in Spanish intoned by our Dominicana head OR nurse, Lucilla Hernandez. Our nurses, OR techs, and anesthesiologists emptied and organized the umpteen duffles that we brought (estimated at nearly two tons), setting up the pre-op, post-op, and OR rooms for the week's surgeries. Meanwhile, our surgeons were upstairs giving lectures to 21 local orthopedic surgery residents from the General Hospital (HUEH) in downtown Port-au-Prince. Dr. Herzenberg (father dearest) covered neglected club foot and calcaneal fractures, while Dr. Job Timeny (who doubled as a medical translator) gave a club foot presentation. Dr. Lee Hlad taught the residents about supramalleolar osteotomy and posterior tendon transfers and Dr. Ahmed Abazzi covered pediatric upper and lower extremity fractures. Our host, Dr. Francel Alexis, gave two outstanding talks on basic principles of the TSF and tibial varum.  The Haitian orthopedic residents were entranced, asked lots of questioned, and promised to come back in smaller groups throughout the week to work in the OR with our doctors. All left with a souvenir Baltimore Limb Deformity Course (deformitycourse.com) goniometer, printed lecture notes, and a BLDC course manual was donated to the HUEH library.

After a lunch of rice and beans provided by the hospital, we walked about a mile and a half to Mary Lou's Orphanage. Mary Lou is 29 years old with one child of her own. She cares for all of the children by her self, and the orphanage consists of 2 full sized beds and 2 bunk beds. There is one washroom and an outdoor courtyard to play in, along with a terrace garden. We were greeted by hugs and beaming smiles. There, we taught the 20 children how to properly wash their hands, followed by distributing mini hand sanitizes and ingredients to make their own sanitizer locally (all you need is alcohol and glycerin!). We also brought fruits and vegetable plants, and helped them plant them in their garden. Finally, we distributed candies, crowns donated by Burger King, jump ropes, soccer balls, and lots of stickers and coloring books.