Annie's Haiti Medical Mission Trip

As many of you know, I am thrilled to have the opportunity to go to Haiti this July as a rising 4th year medical student.

The George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences has been sending groups of physicians, nurses, physician assistants, public health students, and medical students to Haiti since 2005 under the guidance of Dr. Jack Summer. The team provides direct medical care as volunteers for the Haitian NGO Project Medishare (http://www.projectmedishare.org/). During the week, the team stays in the small rural town of Timonde, Haiti which is a 2 hr drive inland from the airport in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince. The Haitian people we serve are some of the poorest in the world. Women and children work hard to carry water from distant wells back to their homes. Many of the children do not own a pair of shoes. Each day over a hundred people patiently wait in line to be seen in our clinics. Together, we provide prenatal and obstetrical care, pediatric well child and sick visits, and adult internal medicine care. Over the course of the week, we estimate that we serve over one thousand Haitians.

For this upcoming trip, I need to raise $1500 to help cover the cost of supplies for the trip, my flight, and medical fees (including malaria prophylaxis medication and required vaccines). Some of the supplies we bring include glucometers and test strips for the diagnoses and management of diabetes, medications that are in low supply in the Project Medishare pharmacy, tooth brushes and tooth paste, and oral rehydration solution to prevention dehydration in children who are acutely ill from cholera and other illnesses.

Here is a link to an article about the trip. http://smhs.gwu.edu/news/hope-and-healing-haiti. Please feel free to contact me with any questions about Haiti and/or the trip.