Mission to Honduras- BWH Bulletin - For and about the People of Brigham and Women's Hospital
Mission to Honduras- BWH Bulletin - For and about the People of Brigham and Women's Hospital
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February 14, 2000
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In This Issue:
Needle Safety Conversion Completed
Black Achiever Award
Mission to Honduras
Town Meeting addresses patient satisfaction
Action teams to form
Obituary
Pike Notes
As vans carrying Brigham and Women’s doctors, Harvard Medical School students, and other practitioners from around the world pulled up to the rural health center in Hoya Grande, Honduras, a thin woman carrying a bundle ran toward them. “My baby has been sick since yesterday. It’s an emergency,” she said in Spanish. “Can you help her?” The baby’s temperature hovered just over 104 degrees Fahrenheit. When she cried, no tears streamed down her chubby cheeks; she was completely dehydrated, yet refused to drink. Doctors immediately injected her with antibiotics and fluids, and gave her oral medicines to reduce her fever. As her temperature fell, she began to suck on a bottle of Pedialyte, an oral rehydration solution for children. Everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief about an hour later when the baby, smiling and gurgling once more, headed home with mom. “If we hadn’t been here, she quite possibly could have died,” noted one member of the Brigham Medical Mission to Honduras. Each year, Linda Jo Stern, MPH, executive director of the BWH Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center, organizes five brigades to Honduras as part of a collaborative project with Partners in Health and Honduras’ Zamarano College, an agricultural school. During each week-long trip, brigade members provide medical and dental care to approximately 2,000 people in 10 poor mountain villages. Doctors on the team treated a whole range of medical problems, including worms, scabies, ear infections, skin ulcers, machete wounds, and repetitive strain injuries from working in the fields or rolling out tortillas. Patients needing specialized care, including a boy with a broken arm and woman with a large breast mass, were referred to the hospital in Tegucigalpa, the capital city. Prevention is also a major component of the mission. “We explain how worms and other diseases are transmitted,” Stern said. “We also talk about nutrition, family planning, and infection prevention.” Twenty-five people from around the world participated in the most recent brigade, including BWH residents Anthony Aizer, MD, Nassim Assefi, MD, and Andrew Williams, MD. Two Harvard Medical School students who work with patients at BWH, Rebecca Perkins and Fidencio Saldaña, also joined the group. “It was definitely a challenge to practice medicine, not only because we had hundreds of people to see every day, but because the resources were so limited,” said Williams. “There were cases where we could only help by writing referral letters. Unfortunately, some of those people probably can’t even afford the bus fare to the hospital.” The trip offered valuable training, too. “It was an opportunity to learn in a much different way,” said Aizer. “I have a lot of experience in the hospital, but I didn’t have a lot of experience treating people in less than ideal circumstances. This trip also gave me a chance to treat health problems we don’t see often in Boston.” For all of these reasons, Marshall Wolf, MD, director of Medical Residency Training, champions the program’s goals and lends financial support to residents who want to participate. “Residents lucky enough to train at BWH should give something back to society,” he said. “The best part is that they learn and grow professionally at the same time.” For more information about BWH Medical Missions to Honduras, contact Linda Jo Stern, program director, at 983-4242 or through e-mail at ljstern@partners.org “It was an opportunity to learn in a much different way. I have a lot of experience in the hospital, but I didn’t have a lot of experience treating people in less than ideal circumstances. This trip also gave me a chance to treat health problems we don’t see often in Boston.” BWH resident, Anthony Aizer, MD, in Honduras