Escape to Bermuda!

Bid for this trip during the Live Auction at Off the Vine, May 27, 2011!

Another wonderful Live Auction item at Off the Vine (May 27th): Dinner with Rob and Nancy Sands in the small dining room at Constellation!

Off the Vine tease....Live Auction packages includes a trip to Italy, which includes airfare and the hotel!

More packages revealed soon...

You're Officially Invited!

Join us for food, friends, and fun at CMAC May 27, 2011. Off the Vine celebrates all the individuals involved with InterVol's programs. Visit our website for more details or contact simone.stickler@intervol.org for more information.

SAVE THE DATE

The second annual Off the Vine event on the stage at CMAC will take place on May 27, 2011.

Come ready to "Pour on the Thanks!"

Click on "SAVE THE DATE" above for more details.

We were accepted! Please notify everyone about our Pepsi Refresh project to give back to more than 200 Rochester Schools! Please go to www.refresheverything.com/intervol and vote for us. You are able to vote everyday for the whole month of August. The top ten projects (those with the most votes!) will receive funding.

InterVol applied for a $50,000 Pepsi Refresh grant in the category of Education. The grant will allow InterVol to expand the local impact of the RUMS (Recovery of Unused Medical Supplies) Program by giving back to the public schools of Monroe County. From microscopes, goggles, and gloves for a science class, to plastic sheets and sponges for an art room. InterVol has the opportunity to give back even more to its community with over 200 Rochester schools potentially benefiting.

PLEASE HELP US Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Refresh our community by voting online or from your mobile phone.

VOTE NOW ONLINE:

Go to http://www.refresheverything.com/intervol

*Please note: By clicking "Vote for this idea" you will be prompted to sign in/create an account.

VOTE BY TEXTING FROM YOUR MOBILE PHONE:

TEXT 101434 to Pepsi (73774).

For more information, please contact rums@intervol.org or call 585-922-5276.

Thank you for your help!

Simone

Distribution of Collected Materials in Leogane

Here are just a few pictures from the distribution of the collected items in Leogane. There will be plenty more to share after the entire team returns tomorrow.

[Ginny among all the shoes brought to Leogane finding some sneakers that fit]

[Pumping up all the soccer balls we brought]

[Leogane Track Club tshirts before distribution]

[Getting fitted for new sneakers]

[All geared up with their new sneakers, soccer balls, and Valenti tshirts]

[Purchasing food for the children of the Lamb Center]

[Children of the Lamb Center]

Collections for the Leogane Track Club

Rochester Community's giving spirit continued with another donation of the Constellation jet for a trip leaving on June 20, 2010. The team included healthcare professionals, Constellation representatives and children's running gear and soccer balls to distribute to the Leogane Track Club.

Partnering with Constellation Brands and the Rochester General Health System to help collect running shoes and soccer balls to benefit the children of Haiti. Both organizations hosted drives for new and gently used shoes to support the cause.

[Collection boxes at RGH]

Between Constellation Brands, Rochester General Health System, and all the local organizations listed below hundreds of pairs of sneakers were collected, along with a variety of sporting equipment and gear! Thank you to all those that contributed!

Rochester Futbol Club

St. Mary's School

Chili Soccer

Harley School

Pittsford Elementary

KB Graphics

CWUS Employees

Brighton Twelve Corners Middle School

Pushyourself.com

Rochester Section V Teams and local college soccer coaches

Valenti Sports

Constellation Pilots

URMC

Wednesday June 16th, volunteers came out to the InterVol warehouse to sort through the sneakers and gear to prepare it for the planes.

Leogane Track Club

The Leogane Track Club collection was a HUGE success. For those of you that didn't hear the story, let me begin with Sean Farrell and how his club developed...

As InterVol is helping to sustain the field hospital and transition the facility to Haitian administration we are also extending our efforts into the Leogane community. Our volunteers are providing support to a local orphanage destroyed by the earthquake, the Lamb Center, which housed, educated, and fed seventy children. The pastor who runs the orphanage had to send some of the children away following the earthquake, when he ran out of provisions.

[Ruins of the Lamb Center Orphanage]

Depending entirely upon the aid from volunteers at the Hopital Sainte Croix field hospital, they have survived. Donated funds have been turned into purchases of rice and beans to feed the children, but their 600 gallon water tank has been destroyed, leaving them with neither a steady source of water nor a means to store it.

[Lamb Center Children]

Through the efforts of three volunteers, and specially Sean Farrell, the Leogane Track Club was founded. It is a successful program which provides daily exercise for several hundred local children ranging from ages 7 to early teen years. Each afternoon, the club departs from the ND residence at 4:30pm for a run through the local countryside, winding its way through the farmland and sugarcane fields over to the ocean for a swim, and back. This simple group activity has become quite popular with the local children, who line up outside the residence for the University of Notre Dame's Haiti Program (which houses the volunteers for the hospital) urging the adults to come lead them, as well as the local community who routinely offer encouragement as the group comes running along the badly worn, rock and gravel strewn, dirt road.

[Leogane Track Club on a Run]

A small percentage of the children actually have running shoes, with most running in worn out plastic sandals, or some barefoot. The club has submitted a design for track club t-shirts to be produced, bearing the words that the founders would call out as they were running during the formation of the club in mid-February - "Vini...Kouri!" Creole or "Come...Run!"

Photo: Belizean sunrise

Friday night, all the doctors from the hospital in Dangriga threw me a going away party. They all came out to Hopkins and we met at a bar/restaurant called Northbeach. It was fun. Unfortunately there were a couple of steps there that I didn’t see in the dark, and stepped off, spraining my ankle. I’ve been icing it and swimming for “hydrotherapy.”

Today, unbelievably, is my last day in Belize. It’s been a tough year (actually 9 months), but I’m glad I came. I think most of what I learned was in the area of “personal growth,” and learning to live in a 3rd world country as an “other.” I’m sure my perspective has changed but I probably won’t fully realize that until I’m back in the States.

I've been working on a paper about what I've done here, and am entitling it "Using telemed to improve access to healthcare in Belize: Lessons learned." In the last couple weeks, I've also been teaching staff at the hospital how to use the telemed system, and handing off responsibilities to them. I'm hoping they will take the opportunity and continue using telemed, so they can have access to the InterVol specialist physicians and continuing education.

After I leave here, I’m doing a couple of international medical school electives, and then will finish my 4th year of med school back in Rochester, starting in August. Thanks to everyone who has been reading this blog! --Tina

P.S. I've come to enjoy blogging, so I have decided to start a blog of my own for my personal future travels/adventures. Please feel free to visit it, at the following address: http://tinagaud.blogspot.com.

Photo: Toucan seen on early morning bike ride.

It’s been awhile since I’ve written, because things have been very busy. The passage of time seems to have been accelerating for the last several weeks, as my time in Belize is coming to an end.

Some of the things that have happened over the last several weeks:

Two groups of InterVol doctors came to Dangriga, for a week each. We had a very productive 2 weeks while they saw patients and did surgeries.

Photo (below): Me, changing the dressing on a young patient who had surgery by Dr. Tim O’Connor, an InterVol plastic surgeon.

My family (my mom, dad, and brother) came and visited me for a week. We went to Tikal, a famous Mayan ruin site across the border in Guatemala. At the border to Guatemala, the Belizean authorities would not let me leave Belize, because I had neglected to extend my visa for the last 2 months. They made me go back to Belmopan, the capital, to pay the fees to extend my visa. This caused the trip to Tikal to take an extra day. When I got back to Hopkins, several people told me that the immigration guy was likely fishing for a bribe and that I probably could have saved myself a lot of time had I offered one. After nine months living here, I'm still pretty naive when it comes to these things.

Photo (below): Spider monkey in Tikal.

Upon returning from Tikal, I found out that my house had been broken into and I had been robbed. Among the things the thief stole were small electronics (cell phones, ipods), money, and a bottle of lime juice (!).

Additionally, the thief ate half a banana and left the other half on top of the refrigerator, presumably forgetting the other half when he discovered the lime juice. Thankfully, I had my computer and passport with me, and no one was hurt.

Photo (above): Baby crocodile who hangs out near my house.

In smaller news, I discovered 2 scorpions in my house, one of which was in my bed...

Now, with only one week left here in Belize,I can't believe I've been here all this time, and I can't believe I'm about to leave!

Photo: Me, under a waterfall discovered on a hike with my family.

Photo: The adorable and very loud parrots that fill the air with squawks at 7 every morning.

In clinic today, we had some interesting patients --

A 53-year-old Garifuna woman came in with an incisional hernia -- no problem, we'll repair it. However, she also complained of vertigo, and asked us if it was due to "wind in the head." I was intrigued by this comment. In traditional Chinese medicine, wind is one of the elements that can cause imbalances and subsequent health problems. However, I think the idea of wind as this woman was talking about was different. Dr. Pott told me that it is a fairly common Garifuna belief that wind, or air, can actually get in a person's head, or shoulder, or other body part, and cause problems.

A young man in his 20's came in for followup on several huge gashes he had acquired during a machete fight. The man was in good spirits, considering a 6-inch wound on his head, a 10-inch wound across his shoulder blade that unfortunately was infected and oozing, and a healing thumb which looked like it had nearly been cut off.

A 10-year-old diabetic girl came in with a ganglion cyst on the top of her foot. The cyst was not so interesting, but when I looked down at her hands in her lap, her right hand had 2 thumbs. I had seen this in textbooks before, but never on a real patient.

One thing I have grown to love here in Belize is Marie Sharp’s habanero pepper sauce. Belizeans call it simply “pepper.” It’s the hot sauce of the country, and it’s everywhere, in every restaurant and corner store. I eat it every day. Over the course of the last 7 months, I’ve worked my way up from Mild, to Hot, to Fiery Hot, to Belizean Heat, to Not for Wimps, and recently graduated to the hottest of the hot, named BEWARE Comatose Heat Level. The label states the following:

Keep out of reach of children. Avoid contact with eyes or skin. Got water? Do not play tricks on the weak or elderly with this sauce.

At this point, I think the nerve endings in my taste buds are singed down to little nerve stubs. As a devoted Marie Sharp’s fan, I visited the Marie Sharp’s factory over the weekend, where they make all the varieties of pepper sauce, as well as jams and juices. I got to taste various ones, such as banana jam, pineapple jam, and coconut spread. Delicious!

Some days, it seems like nothing happens. Yesterday, it seemed like everything happened. First thing in the morning, I teleconferenced in to grand rounds at Rochester General Hospital for a fascinating case presentation on sarcoidosis. Two doctors at the hospital here attended with me.

Then, I assisted on surgeries with Dr. Pott, one of which was an open cholecystectomy (gall bladder removal). Although I saw many cholecystectomies during my Surgery rotation last year in medical school, they were all done laparoscopically. Yesterday was the first time I saw it done as an open procedure (we don’t have laparoscopy here in Dangriga), and seeing the internal organs rekindled my wonder and fascination with the human body and general surgery.

In the afternoon I drove to Belmopan, the capital of Belize, to meet with the CEO of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Peter Allen. This meeting was incredibly productive for me. For the first time, I felt like my services were actually welcomed in Belize. From the day I arrived in Belize, I had the impression that the doctors and staff at the hospital didn’t really want the telemed program I’m trying to implement. Early in the project, one of the people I needed help and cooperation from most seemed set on working against me. I won't go into details, but suffice it to say I was encountering unnecessary barriers. One important one was that I was told I couldn’t see patients unless they were referred by a Belizean doctor. And getting referrals from doctors here is like pulling teeth. My project seemed doomed in this context. As a result, I spent much of the last few months feeling frustrated, like my hands were tied, like I wasn’t making any impact.

However, Dr. Allen informed me that there is no need for doctors here to be involved in order to do a telemed consult. This changes everything! My project as I had imagined it in the beginning is actually possible after all. Dr. Allen gave me the OK to set up clinic here at the hospital, to triage patients for telemed consultation. This could dramatically increase the use of telemed, because although doctors are less than enthusiastic about telemed, patients are desperate for it. Sometimes when I’m walking around the hospital in my scrubs, especially if I have a stethoscope around my neck, people waiting in hallways are begging me to see their family member, and when I tell them I’m a medical student and not a doctor, they don’t care.

I only wish I had met with Dr. Allen earlier in my fellowship, because at this point I only have 2 months left here. However, I’m going to make the most of these next 2 months. And, over the last seven months, I have succeeded in building relationships with hospital staff, and likely, over time they will warm up to telemed once their patients start requesting it.

Finally, at the end of the day yesterday, I was able to obtain some x-rays to send to a Rochester surgeon, for a desperate young woman that we’re trying to bring to Rochester for a surgery to save her leg. That story, to be continued...

Photo: Workers loading oranges from a smaller truck into a larger truck. The scent of fresh citrus wafts through the air!

Yesterday in clinic I saw a 3-year-old boy who had been developing normally until he was a year and a half, then started regressing back developmentally, to younger and younger stages. Essentially he’s becoming brain damaged, but we don’t know why. Some of the causes for this scenario are treatable. However, in Belize we don’t have the available tests to determine which disorder this patient has, and therefore we can’t advise any treatment. It quickly became clear that the reason the pediatrician had referred this patient to our clinic was so that we would deliver the news that there was nothing we could offer the patient, not even a diagnosis. If we were in the States, the patient would have a battery of tests and most likely we could find out what he has, and whether it’s treatable. Here, the parents will have to live with not knowing what is wrong with their child, and not being able to do anything about it.

In good news, this morning we teleconferenced in to Grand Rounds at Rochester General Hospital. Teleconferencing in to Grand Rounds gives doctors here the opportunity to attend lectures by leading experts in Medicine, something they would not otherwise have access to. After stalling many times in previous weeks trying to get this program started, today was a big success, with 11 doctors and nurses attending! This was a much higher turnout than I had expected, and the doctors I surveyed thought the lecture was very interesting and useful.

Photos: Left: Rasta man, Belize City

Right: Bare-throated tiger heron, running to hide behind a pile of dirt.

Photo: Nurse sharks in Hol Chan Marine Reserve, Belize

Last week was my birthday, and to celebrate, I swam with sharks. I went to the island of Caye Caulker on Saturday, and from there, went scuba diving and snorkeling. Among hundreds of fish, I saw 4 types of stingrays, and the sharks in the photo. Belize has the second largest barrier reef in the world, and the coral is truly beautiful.

I’ve been emailing with the CEO of the Ministry of Health of Belize, to try to move telemed forward here from the political side of things. I was surprised and pleased to discover that he’s very supportive of the project, and wants to meet with me to discuss how we can overcome some of the barriers I’ve been facing in integrating it into the healthcare system here.

It’s orange season in Belize. Oranges are one of the major Belizean exports, along with bananas, shrimp, and sugarcane. The great majority of the oranges are not eaten, but are made into juice for exportation. One of my patients makes his living making fresh-squeezed orange juice with his 2 kids, and selling it to stores and to individual people. Yesterday, he brought Dr. Pott and me each a gallon jug of it. Delicious!

In addition to business as usual this week, I’ve been helping out with a large group of volunteer health care workers who are here from the U.S. Sixty-four doctors, nurses, and other health care workers are seeing patients, doing surgeries, etc. for the week. This gives me the opportunity to see other types of specialized surgeries that I would otherwise not see, e.g. urologic surgeries and ENT surgeries.

Photo: One of the many orange trucks filled with ripe oranges.