Updates from Alfonso Duran, Daniel Patton, and David Puder

From Alfonso Duran:

First day in Haiti…. It’s hard to put in words how the situation is down here (tragic, unfair, sadness, inhumane, terrible, fear and etc). However the people seem so resilient; they have already begun to rebuild their homes, clean up the streets, care for their sick and assist others in need. The Haitians are truly amazing people. I am blessed because I was given the opportunity to work with them as they rebuild their future.

From Daniel Patton:

So first day…

Driving though the city was incredible. Buildings with the family of the dead still crawling over the rubble. Our van overheated we turned off the AC and we overheated.

20 min after arriving at the hospital, I was scrubbed on a foot abcess drain. That was followed by putting a rod down a 95 y/o ladies femur. But first I helped assemble a ventilator for anaesthesia.

The rod was placed without the use of portable xray as is standard in the US. The results are graet. The attendings generously allowed me to perform much of the surgery.

I went to find the other med students in the ER. There was a baby delivered but not breathing, blue. I bagged while the nurse stimulated the infant to cry: blue to pink. “Alfonzo the short” was sowing up a childs head: lots of screaming. “Puder the tall” consulted Ortho (me) for some rib fractures, just to make me feel good.

Then I followed up with my post op patients and xrays. Doing great. Removed a cast and changed fdressing or an ankle fracture case tomorrow. Took sutures out of a boy with likely bone cancer.

It’s 8pm and I just ate my first meal other than cliff bars. Gonna set up my mosquito net and sleep a few hours.

From David Puder:

First day at the hospital in Port-au-Prince, worked all day in the ER! Amazing! Diagnosed malaria, Glyburide induced hypoglycemia with pneumonia (some other hospital also thought he had GERD, but really only pleuritis per history….)  Picture Alfonso Duran yelling, “Check his glucose stat!” Daniel Patton screwed in someone’s femur nail and other fun ortho things. The place has 20 monks preparing a vegan meal for everyone! It is the only hospital still completely free of charge, and it seems we have just enough people to be endlessly busy, but also doing a good job!

The one thing I am blown away with is the Haitians were cleaning up the earthquake rubble, translating for me for free all day, basically going back to work! Some of them would pull out money to pay even, but since everything is donated, it is free! I felt safe going through the streets today, even when our car overheated and we had to get out… The Haitians basically fixed our car before we knew why 10 guys were frantically moving around!