In the early morning hours of Saturday, October 4 – the first full day of Fall Break – a Team of four faculty, including Dean John Kauffman, and eight second year medical students departed Buies Creek for Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Arriving in the early afternoon, they were accompanied by Bobby and Wanda Temple, veteran missionaries from Creedmoor, NC. The Temples have served with the NC Baptist Men for many years, and now, they have donated their years of experience to the group of future Campbell physicians by serving as escorts and handling on-the-ground trip logistics prior to the group’s arrival. “They connected us with an amazing Haitian guest house, a host family of four, who supplied not only a welcoming place to stay, but also assisted by preparing meals for the team,” said Director of Community and Global Health Oscar Aylor.
On day two, the team attended a Haitian church service that lasted most of the morning, then, in the afternoon, Dr. Vlad Roseau, medical director of Alpha Omega Ministries, provided the team an orientation regarding his clinic and the mobile clinics that operate out of the primary facility in the town of Cabaret near Port-au-Prince. Dr. Roseau operates the clinics with the assistance of his wife and sister-in-law who are all American trained doctors with a passion for providing healthcare to their home country.
“It is interesting to see how they practice medicine with the resources they have versus us coming in and doing it our way,” reflected second year medical student Jessica Parker.
Monday through Thursday, the students and CUSOM faculty rotated through serving at the permanent clinic and mobile clinic sites throughout the area in churches and under roadside trees. The days were long and hot with the clinics operating from 8:00am to 2:00pm, and afternoons were spent visiting orphanages. Dr. Don Maharty, assistant professor of family medicine and osteopathic manipulative medicine at Campbell, organized the rotations of students and faculty. Everyone had an opportunity to serve at a variety of locations and capacities in treating approximately 400 patients before concluding with nightly debriefing sessions and devotion time.
“We did everything from patient in-take, to wound care, to osteopathic manipulative medicine, to antibiotic and rabies shots,” Parker continued to explain.
Medical missions and outreach adds a dimension to how the students view the practice of medicine and gives context to what they are learning in the classroom. “We had just finished cardiology in block 6 of our courses, and I was able to identify an aortic stenosis when I listened to a patient’s heart – it was fulfilling to be able to provide the diagnosis,” shared Angela Lee. “Participating in outreach experiences and missions helps you truly realize you won’t be a medical student forever – very soon we will be the doctor. When your supervising physicians step away and leave you with a patient, you immediately realize they trust you as a doctor and one day soon, we won’t have someone looking over our shoulder and advising us.”
Seth Stallard and Brianna Knott both agreed the most impactful experience was treating a patient with Type-I Diabetes – seeing the debilitating effects of the disease for the patient and knowing if she was in the United States her condition would be well managed. “Access to electricity is limited in Haiti, and the insulin cannot be properly kept, so they simply do not have any” reported Seth.
The team saw another example of how the simple lack of medical supplies impacts healthcare in Haiti when they visited a burn center operated by two nurses in partnership with Global Outreach. Most of the patients are children burned by cook fires and range from 1st to 3rd degree burns. Patients are generally treated without narcotics – just over the counter drugs. The narcotics they do have on hand were supplied through the earthquake relief efforts over 4 years ago and are used only in extreme cases.
The students were thankful for the skills they have and the relief they were able to offer. “We provided osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) for headaches, shoulder pain, and range of motion problems. It was fulfilling to have OMT to offer to patients and provide them with some relief and teach them exercises that can help them once we were gone,” said Angela Lee.
Kelli Shortt also felt her medical education at Campbell prepared her well for the trip. “I have been participating in the additional ultrasound training available to us as second years, and it definitely was useful – ultrasound is one of the few modalities available at the clinic because it is affordable and portable.”
The team also experienced how treating the mind and spirit of their patients has a significant impact, but can also be complicated by cultural beliefs and lack of education. “Assisting patients with emotional stress through prayer and just talking with them and helping them understand their bodies was a big part of giving them care,” reflected Kelli.
“I treated at least one patient who had gone to a witch doctor first, and it made her condition worse. It was interesting to hear the doctor talking to the patient about this,” shared Jessica Parker.
The trip concluded on Friday with opportunities for the team to connect with the Haitian culture outside of the doctor-patient relationship. Students enjoyed bargaining with street vendors and visiting the Haitian Museum of History and Culture. “We saw the city is on the rebound thanks to the international earthquake relief efforts. There is hope in the air, and we hope our efforts added to that hope,” said Oscar Aylor.
This was not the first medical mission trip for several of these students. For example, Brianna Knott had spent four weeks in Sierra Leone over the summer between her first and second year of medical school. “The Ebola crisis was just beginning when I left,” Knott said. “I still keep in touch with the clinic and check in each week to make sure no one has died…they have seen cases, but all of the health care workers have remained healthy thus far”. She is one of many Campbell medical students who have a passion for providing medical care to the rural and underserved here in North Carolina as well as around the world in keeping with the school’s mission.
The trip to Haiti was the first of four international medical mission trips the school of medicine will sponsor for students during the 2014-2015 academic year. Groups will travel to Guatemala and Jamaica in December and to Honduras in the Spring. “The trips are part of our Medical Missions and Global Health track,” shared Dean Kauffman. “We are committed to providing opportunities for our students to interact with patients beginning in their first year of medical school as well as opportunities for them to serve the most underserved populations in North Carolina and around the world….we know these experiences will help make them excellent physicians, and they want to go – it is truly rewarding to see their desire to serve.”
Campbell Medical Team Returns From First Mission in Haiti