A New Group!

Day 1: October 31, 2010

Ten months ago the people of Haiti experienced a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, leaving 230,000 people dead and over a

million displaced. Lots of people have helped out on the ground in Haiti, many of them for years before the quake, and something like 1 in 6 Americans donate

d some amount of money. Against this

backdrop, going back to Haiti for a second trip pales in comparison, but here we are

doing our small part. Thanks for following along ... these are some of our thoughts upon coming back do

wn to Hospital Adventiste d'Haiti again to do some

more orthopaedic volunteer work. If you experience any lame attempt

s at humor, please keep in mind that it's simply to lighten up a narrative written about as boring as can be, about a situation that might otherw

ise seem depressing and hopeless and can be... but with enough

time and help, doesn't have to be. After our last trip in July, the th

ree of us have had a really strong desire to help out some more. We've taken the lessons we learned the last time to heart and made some steps to see how we could help more people the second time around. Although Liz unfortunately couldn't join us this time; we recruited some more people, and so here's the team for our second go-around:

Beth Bard - third-year medical student extraordinaire at the University of Minnesota. She's really gotten into the international orthopaedic swing of things and is looking forward to spending the next year of medical school vol

unteering

abroad to Uganda and

India! Both she and Andrea hail from Alexandria, Minnesota and were one year apart in high school ... and hadn't even been aware of each other's existence until this tri

p!

Andrea Paulson - fourth-year medical student at the University of Minnesota. She's a medic

al mission veteran having been to Mexico, Tanazania, and Nepal already! She's got her husband Jake and son Bauer holding down the fort at home, hopefully not eating radioactive orange mac and cheese every me

al.

Paige Saunders - part-time rastafarian, part-time certified registered nurse anesthetist at Hennepin Co

unty Medical Center in Minneapolis, MN. She's the one holding this whole house of cards together. Now we are no longer at the me

rcy of the Haitian anesthesiologists' schedule! She misses her kids Isaac (13) and Sidney (6), but unlike Andrea, is

100% certain the ARE eating radio

active orange mac and cheese every meal.

Jessica Bice - this is one cool lady. Harley rider extraordinaire, dog owner/lover, and has a brother named Vince who dishes up the grub at the Whisk

ey, which if you haven't be

en there, is a fun place to ride your Harley to and watch cool shows. In her spare time,

she holds down a day job at Hennepin County Medical Center as an operating room nurse, dealing with immature squirts like Paige, Tom, and Pat.

Tom Slater - former surgical tech extraordinaire, now trauma implant coordinator at Hennepin County Medical Center. For those of you who speak English and not hospitalese, he sits in his office and drinks coffee for about 11.9 hours a day, and does actual ordering of orthopaedic and neurosurgical devices for about 0.1 hours a day. He likes to think of it as just

being super-efficient. He's excited about his son Cole (4) starting mini-mites next year!

Pat Yoon - orthopaedic surgeon at Hennepin County Medical Center specializing in fixing broken stuff in the lower extremities. Unlike his buddy Tom, he actually does 11.9 hou

rs of actual work a day and spends the other 0.1 hours in Tom's office drinking coffee. He has no kids to watch playing hockey or worrying if they're eating radioactive mac and cheese, but does have a lab mutt named Corky (4) and three cute nephews named Matteo (5), Oliver (3), and Owen (1).

Our travel day started off with cleaning up after the Help Haiti Part Deux par

ty. We had a great turnout with about a hundred people, and this helped out a lot in defraying the costs of going to Haiti. Essentially our only costs

were the plane flights, so those of you who pitched in can sleep easy tonight, and rest assured that it all went to a good cause – getting us down there. Jessica Bice’s mom Carol drive us to the airport where we meet up with Paige and Andrea. After a quick layover in Chicago we arrive in Miami where we retrieve our luggage to re-check it into the Haiti flight. Somehow, American Airlines loses the biggest bag of all, this 75 lb. behemoth of a hockey bag which has a lot of important stuff in it … spinal trays, scrub brushes, shoe covers, surgeon caps, laparatomy packs, Paige’s glide scope, and mos

t important of all, Tom’s entire supply of beef jerky (we are going to a Seventh Day Adventist Hospital, af

ter all, where they don't serve meat). We speculate how in the world they could lose such a huge bag – it’s not like it’s easy to miss or anything. I’m thinking the baggage handlers

are just looking at this thing going “aw, hell no, we’re not lifting that” and just leaving it on the tarmac in Minneapolis or Chicago … by this time, it’s past midnight and our connecting flight to Port-au-Prince is at 6:40 am. The 6 of us curl up next to a couple of seats near a SmartCarte vending machine near the ticket counter at Miami airport to grab a few hours of sleep. I unplug the SmartCarte machine so we can use its extension

cord to recharge our phones. I have a ha

zy memory of a

poor guy trying unsuccessfully to retrieve a cart from the machine. After a few hours of tossing and turning we got on the Haiti flight and arrive in Port-au-Prince and are instantly welcomed by the death grip of the heat and humidity. Tom’s prepared with a do-rag which is almost instantaneously soaked. We retrieve our bags in the open hangar that passes for an immigration hall / customs room and meet up with our driver from Hospital Adventist d’Haiti, Richard. Somehow the drive only takes about 20 minutes this time when our memories of the last time took about an hour. Things look about the same on the drive in. Lots of rubble, lots of trash, and lots of people despite it all just going about their daily lives.

Once at Adventiste we get to meet up with Jessica Scott from Georgia, affectionately known as Hotlanta, who's been down here ever since June, as well as Sarah Carignan, an ER administrator at Mass General in Boston, and Chia-Ti Chiu, a massage therapist and yoga instructor from Brookly

n. We all worked together the last time we were here in July, and arranged to all work here again this week as part of Team Yoon (or Tea

m Carignan depending on whom you ask!). Literally the minute we put our packs down people start rolling into the ER. I run down there to start seeing patients, Andrea and Beth organize stuff in the supply room, and Tom sweats. No, seriously he works his tush off organizing stuff in the operating room, delivering the supplies we brought down with us (we brought 12 big hockey bags with us, 2 per person). One of the patients we see in the ER was referred here from another hospital when her heel got cut by a motorcycle. She shows up with a gaping wound and Achilles tendon and bright blue prolene suture flapping

in the breeze. We set her up for an I&D tomorrow in the OR to wash things out.

We get a warm welcome from Nathan and Amy Lindsey, the long-term volunteers who run this place. Furthermore, this being Halloween, Sarah and Chia-ti welcome us with decorations of pumpkins and bats, complete with nice grills, bling, and glitter! Although it’s late at night, we’re tired and sweaty, and we've been traveling and working for the past 36 hours straight, it feels good to be back!