Hot for Haiti
It lies in the middle of the hurricane belt, has a humidity of 80-90 percent, not a single Starbucks and they can’t wait to go back.
Faculty members of the Physician Assistant Program at the UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences have been bringing students to medical missions in Haiti for several years now.
The UND contingents work with the Haitian Health Foundation (HHF), a not-for-profit health and human services organization founded in the mid 1980s to serve poor people in the isolated, mountainous western portion of Haiti. Located in the city of Jeremie, Haiti (pop. 37,000) about 150 miles west of the capital, Port au Prince, the foundation is a volunteer, grass roots humanitarian organization that provides outpatient medical care, eye and dental care, pre and postnatal and pediatric care for the poor of the community and the surrounding villages.
Mary Ann Laxen (FNP/PA ’91), associate professor and director of the UND Physician Assistant (PA) Program, has worked with the organization since 1991 and started planning clinical experiences for UND PA students when she came to UND in 1999.
“I wanted students to experience that not all the world has access to high-tech diagnostic equipment or treatments,” Laxen said. “Working with the HHF makes them rely on their own senses and what the patient is telling them to find out what is wrong and how to treat it.”
During the two-week experience, students and faculty members provide care to patients at the HHF clinic in Jeremie and work closely with the Haitian workers sharing information and techniques. Through this experience, they are exposed to things they might never see in their practices at home including malaria, tuberculosis, HIV and AIDS, malnutrition, typhoid fever, parasites, ringworm and much more.
“We saw more malaria in one hour than the U.S. has in a year,” said Wanda Frank (PA ’06) from Alexandria, MN, who was one of three PA students to go on the latest trip in March.
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| A young Haitian girl watches as Wanda Frank examines her grandmother's ear during a day-long clinic trip into the Haitian mountains. At these clinics, people line up to be seen, and exams are often done in the open with the other patients watching, because there is no other place to do them. |
In addition to working at the HHF facilities in Jeremie, the students take trips up into the mountains to provide clinics to the people there. At these day-long clinics, people line up to be seen, and exams are often done in the open with the other patients watching, because there is no other place to do them. Frank remembers the start of her first mountain clinic.
“Everyone who wanted to be checked out was in the church, which we were using as the clinic that day. The place was full of people. A member of the village brought all of us to the front of the room and introduced each one of us by name,” she pauses, choking up at the memory.
“Then the whole group began signing and praying for us, thanking us for being there. We hadn’t even done anything yet! All we had done was show up.”
Tery Hursh (PA ‘06) from Dillon, MT, another student from the last trip, also remembers how grateful the people are.
“They were all so appreciative,” said Hursh. “I can still see all their smiles.”
Two Weeks is Not Enough
Annette Larson (FNP/PA ‘79), assistant professor in the physician assistant program at the UND medical school, was so impressed with the work of the HHF, that she applied for developmental leave from the university and spent six months in Haiti just over a year ago.
“Having a background in rural and family medicine really prepared me for this experience,” said Larson, who worked in Harvey, ND, in the late ‘70s. “I knew the skills I had were of value to the organization.”
During that trip, Larson spent a lot of time with HHF’s prenatal care and malnutrition program at their “Center
of Hope.”
“My work with these malnutritioned children was very gratifying,” said Larson. “I was devastated and disheartened with the deaths of children caused mostly by their late arrival to the center. They were too ill in a health system that had minimal resources available to help them in time of crisis. I was ecstatic when I saw weights improve on children and watched them change from listless, apathetic infants to smiling, healthy looking little people.”
A Life-Long Connection
“There is a very humanitarian part to medicine,” said Laxen. “This experience helps students develop that. It has been a life altering experience for every student we have taken there. It awakens their desire to give.”
“Each of us left Haiti having not given as much as we had received,” agrees Hursh. “We walk lighter now and carry a heavier load.”
Larson is already planning her return to Haiti by organizing a week-long continuing medical education trip for doctors, physician assistants and nurse practitioners.
“The people are very loving, accepting, thankful and faithful,” Larson continues. “We shared with the poor and broken and, in the process, achieved a renewed appreciation for all the blessings that we possess.”
“I will have a lifetime relationship with HHF,” she added.
- Amanda Scurry
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