I wake up on Sabbath morning to enjoy a few peaceful moments under the mango tree, reflect on the events of the week and read a chapter in my French Bible. Sabbath is the only morning that we don’t have to hear the recently donated gas leaf blower start up at 620am. I also slept in a bit later than usual due to the absence of at least one outspoken rooster who routinely wakes up at 3:45am…
I contemplate the busy week of boot camp activities, wondering if the medical students have been as inspired by the experience as I have. We kicked off most days with a morning run, either a 5am run at the track or a 6am sunrise jaunt up the rugged dirt road hills returning through the chaos and pollution of Port au Prince rush hour traffic. Hospital worship starts at 730am sharp – a hymn, prayer, hymn, Psalms, devotional, special music, benediction, announcements and the salutation. It is good chance to practice French comprehension and greet the staff.
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- Sarah, Mackenzie and Jenny
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- Aurriel and Brianna prepare to see some exciting operations
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- James and Sarah Appel stand in front of a wall that needs to be painted
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- Painting the wall was maybe the least cherished of the experiences, but even that was enjoyed by some
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- Sarah gives Emily and Aurriel a lesson on gurney repair
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- Colorful taptap riders
We then gathered around the table under the tree with our boot camp family to hear Sarah tell a story about working in a bush hospital – always with a spiritual pearl. The work strategy of the day was briefly discussed. Teams A, B and C – 3 students each take turns on different activities. The surgical service includes going to clinic, doing rounds, observing surgery, washing instruments, and organizing the OR. Sarah’s team roams the hospital looking for patients and projects that need attention. Their activities include caring for patients in the ER, transporting them to the OR, facilitating x-rays and labs, reorganizing the pharmacy, cast room, multiple storage rooms, working with nurses, repairing gurneys and wheelchairs. We also had a maintenance and grounds team which spent most of the two weeks putting a fresh coat of paint on our 300 foot wall. Lots of graffiti was eliminated, but more came in the night almost as quickly as the paint dried. Luckily there was time to repaint those parts of the wall and we now have two days of no graffiti in front of our hospital. Probably a new record.
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- Jenny, Mackenzie and Ruth make new friends
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- Patrick and his brother host the foreigners
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- Jenny, Emily and Elijah take Dr. Lamberton on a home visit
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- Eric and Elijah shopping for food
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- Harrison teaches Creole class
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- Street life in Carrefour
Projects stopped at 4pm for the afternoon Kreyol class. Harrison is the professor and he did an excellent job. Everyone also got a chance to experience the hardships of life in Haiti by doing some home visits. Dr. Lamberton, chairman of the DMA program, came from Loma Linda to join us during the last several days. His sense of adventure found him on the back of a motorcycle taxi going on a home visit with some of the students. After dinner each night testimonies and experiences were shared and the answers to some difficult questions were discussed. Everyone went to bed tired.
Click the video above to see Dr. Dan Smith mellifluously insert an intramedullary nail.
James and Scott at work on a TSF
Dr. Dan Smith and Dr. James were able to do a much awaited for operation on a young boy who lives in squalor with a colostomy. He ate some cement a few years ago and plugged up his colon which resulted in 6 operations and a colostomy. The operation this week will once again allow him to have normal bowel function. This is a whole story of its own. No time now. But it is one of the many miraculous and providential events happening at HAH.
After finishing his surgery on Wednesday afternoon James and the students decided to chase the rooster down and chop his head off with a machete. The med students who just finished their anatomy class plucked him and used their knowledge to remove the liver, heart, gizzard and other innards. The rooster was then prepared with some spices from the bunkhouse and served as an hors d’oeuvre. Even the vegetarians and animal rights activists joined the occasion.
All of these events run through my head as I sit under the mango tree. Birds chirp, a gentle breeze blows, and the sun rises. After enjoying a few moments of peace I come back into the house to get away from the mosquitos, when suddenly I hear a loud boom and shattering glass. I run back outside to see James coming out of the duplex across the yard in a stupor. I find Sarah sitting inside on the floor relatively unharmed by the oven that just exploded. She is in a daze but still has a smile on her face and is chuckling about the event while holding her head. A thick smoky haze fills the house and oven parts are strewn about the kitchen. The oven was 18 inches out from the wall and the top looks like the open hood on a taptap. The blast blew out the kitchen window, shattered glass all over the porch, but the screen intact. Sarah only suffered a minor head injury from some unknown projectile. The flame had gone out while baking banana bread. Thinking the tank had probably run out of propane she tried to relight the oven. These Haitian ovens can be finicky and we learned that it is not good to relight them after the flame has gone out. Evidently the learning lesson was not clearly communicated to the students who were later cooking dinner and noticed their flame had gone out in the bunkhouse oven. Later in the day when Greg and Brianna try to relight the oven BOOM! Another blast, albeit slightly less forceful than the first. Hairs were singed, no windows blown out. Unlike the first oven this one might be repairable, or we will consider replacing with something of higher quality.
We wanted boot camp to be an authentic experience – not one that would just be called fun or enjoyable. Nonetheless it seems that everyone had a blast and thankfully it all ended well.
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- Brianna, Aurriel and Emily create map art marking the location of Adventist hospitals around the world
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- Ruth and friends admire a brand new human life less than 1 hour old
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- Gregory and Mackenzie make friends in the salle d’urgence (ER)
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- Map is hung on the wall near the pharmacy
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- Narrow streets in shantytown
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- Eric learns about orthopaedic implants and organizes cannulated screws
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- Hospital chauffer diplomatically navigates arriving boot camp participants around the political protests that reached a climax during the first week of boot camp
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- Morning rounds
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- Sutures nicely organized in the OR by Sarah and team.
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- Dr. Fenison from Loma Linda spent week 2 helping with cases and teaching his daughter Aurriel a bit about orthopedics
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- Aurriel helps with the C-arm while her dad, Dr. Anthony Fenison fixes a tibial plateau fracture
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- Brianna prepares to help remove some external fixators
Good times with Greg
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