We have been very blessed at Friends for Health in Haiti by all the individuals, churches and organizations that have chosen to work with us in our medical ministry in Haiti. Visitors bring us encouragement as well as expertise and we value the contributions of everyone who has come to Haiti to experience our work and get a glimpse of our ministry.
One of our newer partnerships is with the Medical College of Wisconsin. I (Dr. Wolf) am now back on the clinical staff at MCW, in the Department of Internal Medicine and we are offering a Global Health elective for fourth year medical students. This winter we had our first medical students work with us here in Haiti.
January brought us Ellie Olander, whose family is from Illinois. She is planning to apply for a residency in Medicine and Pediatrics. She had the dubious honor of being the first MCW student to rotate with us and she passed with flying colors! I wrote about her in our last blog, since she was here with Patrick Harrington and his daughter Anna with Project Agua. She also overlapped with retired veterinarian and amateur photographer Pat Mahoney. Ellie was a big help in the clinic and we hope she learned some valuable lessons for the future, especially with regard to caring for patients from different cultural backgrounds.
Dr. Wolf and Ellie Olander examine a patient in the Emergency Room.
Ellie got experience in both medicine and pediatrics, including a consultation with this happy little boy!
We had Pat Mahoney go out into some of the communities where we have built houses and repaired latrines after the hurricane. He enjoyed photographing people in their home environment as well as being photographed!
Photographer Pat Mahoney gets a rare photo of himself with a woman whose house we’re repairing.
Pat also took a lot of photos in the clinic, both of our staff and our patients. Look for some of them on our Facebook page, since he will be posting to it from time to time. Pat’s photos will also be featured at our upcoming Annual Banquet in Milwaukee on April 28th.
In February, we enjoyed having our second MCW student, Anisah Ndifor. An interesting thing about Anisah is that she grew up in the Cameroon, so coming to Haiti seemed like going home to her. It was delightful to see her “discovering” Haitian food, only to realize that she ate similar food when she was growing up. Anisah is planning to do a residency in OB/gyn, so she enjoyed seeing young women patients, especially when they’ve been pregnant.
Anisah consults a young woman in the clinic
Thank you, MCW, for sending these great students our way! And, thanks to the students for their flexibility and patience with us.