Monday, February 15, 2010

Working in a Tri-Lingual Clinic-23 January 2010

Today the Mexicans came and brought whole surgical teams. We were speaking French, Spanish and English. It was very confusing and at times overcrowded, but it was good to see so many people from different languages and cultures working together with a common goal of helping the Haitians. Additionally, the Mexicans brought 8,000 boxes of food which we loaded into trucks and distributed until we were mobbed and then brought it all back. Yesterday, we saw 160 cases between 8am-5pm. Today we had seen 140 cases by 2 pm, so our clinic is becoming more efficient. The cases today were also less severe, and in the afternoon, everything really slowed down. It was even hard to get helicopters for non-critical patients. Additionally, the media was present in full force. It was another long day, but it was still very rewarding. It is interesting to watch an operation like this, that is built from the ground up. The first day was mass chaos just trying to treat the flood of patients with limited supplies. Now we have tents set up for patients to wait in, a check-in table, 2 operating rooms, a labor and delivery room and even an area that is just for changing out bandages. It is neat to see the evolution of field medicine and what many people can do with limited time and supplies.

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