04-JUN-B-5
PREPARATIONS FOR, NEWS
RELEASE ABOUT,
AND THE ITINERARY OF THE
MEDICAL RELIEF MISSION
TO THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
AND HAITI
June 22, 2004
1. Six Public Health
Students will be accompanying the mission and at least one of their professors
from George Washington University. Dr. Waters, an Andeanist‑‑(the
latter to be confirmed re Haiti.) The
staff is also including one former Peace Corps Volunteer in the area to which
we will be directing aid in Thumonde and Cange Haiti where we had previously
worked last year (Bryan J. Schaaf.)
Ellen Powers is in Haiti with Project MediShare, and Loune and Paul
Farmer are heading up the PIH ("Partners in Health") in Cange. Ulrick Gaillard is director of the Batey
Relief Alliance, facilitating the logistics on the Dominican Republic side of
the island's border. The rest are
medical students at GWUMC (with several as yet unconfirmed from Howard
University, Harvard and other North American medical schools) and as yet to be
confirmed, basic biomedical science students entering GWUMC in the coming
year. The leader is a veteran of many
medical missions including both of the proposed fields on the island (details
attached.)
2. Immediate assistance is in rendering acute
care in clinics set up where prior facilities might have been destroyed or
damaged. The principle function on the
providers' side is to indigenize expertise in handling common problems with
locally appropriate solutions including empowering them with instructions and
medicines which are brought in redundant supply to leave with them and the
expertise in their continued use after the team departs. Encouragement is also provided in
infrastructure rebuilding and support to the team which will carry on with public
enhancement of their image with colleagues who can be reached for additional
assistance remotely or directly.
3 I will be packing my standard developing
world Travel Paks I had ordered and which will be delivered to me by MAP this
week, carried by team members as baggage checked in with us with the
restrictions on the gift characteristics of these supplies under the
supervision of the accompanying licensed physician.. A complete list of the Travel Paks and J
& J kits is forthcoming by fax which is being forwarded to Bryan Schaaf to
relay to you, or can be obtained from me (if fax number is provided) or
directly from Ruth McLeod at MAP (912/265‑6170 fax, Phone is 800/225‑8550 www.map.org
4 Our biggest product is not
health care but HOPE! We view this mission
as a gesture toward the people afflicted that someone has heard about their
problems, cares about them and will try to help them help themselves with some
aid to get them re‑started in the locally appropriate responses to daily
emergencies with restoration of some rudiments of health care. The second leading product of the mission is
the process‑‑that is, it
is extremely educational as an experience of stretching for entry level medical
practitioners to understand what the goals and means of caring are about, and
it is also an attempt to incorporate the local practitioners in the process for
an exchange of health care information and consultation, empowering to both
sides of the exchange. The dignity of
the parties on all sides of the exchange is honored in the conditions they must
mutually deal with‑‑and one of the very enlightening and noble
revelations for many of my first‑world previously pampered colleagues is
an epiphany I call "Gifts from the Poor." Encountering a destitute population with very
little, but who are willing to give it all to the visitor from the affluent
world is a humbling and enlightening experience that makes most of them return
knowing they got more than they gave.
5 If these sentiments on my
part are insufficient, you might consult the closing lines of the Home Page (http://home.gwu.edu/~gwg)
or the page I have maintained for students entitled International Medical
Education (www.gwu.edu/~intmeded).
OF
The GEORGE
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER
OF
The GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
If you have been asking yourself
"With all the changes going on in US health care today, and
so much unmet need around the rest
of the developing world, what am I doing here and why
did I get into this profession in
the first place?"‑‑‑Welcome! You have come to the right
place
at the right time!
Let me be of help as one of your
dream weavers. If you want to experience the adventure of
international travel, if you want
to give of yourself for a very rewarding return, and if you want
to learn from real experts lessons
on which we have to start catching up fast: "How to handle
swelling volumes of varied health
problems of greater severity in increasing populations with
scarce and dwindling
resources"‑‑again, welcome to this International Medical
Education
Home Page at the George Washington
University Medical Center!
My name is Glenn W. Geelhoed MD,
and as you might see in my own Home Page, I am a
professional hunter/gatherer of
such experiences and a veteran global nomad with an incurable
contagion I would like to transmit
to you. This ideal you had when you applied to medical
school does not have to be jaded
by the realities and the insecurity in the unknowns of the
status of health care in the flux
of developed world changes. You can do a lot to help others
with what you know already, and
will accrue experience and confidence in applying those
helping skills while enjoying the
thrill of adventure travels to some of the world's more exciting
places. In assisting some of the
world's neediest people, empowering them to manage some of
their overwhelming problems for
which you have learned skills you can apply and transmit, you
will be getting back ten‑fold,
in turn, the perspective, coping skills, and spirit of hope that your
working visit will enhance on either end
of this exchange!
Just start clicking your way to
the dream you would like to follow!
What can I expect?
Where can I go?
What will I need?
What will I do?
Where can I get more
information on this?
How on earth can I pay for
all this?
So, now, get ready, and follow
that dream!
I do NOT know precisely
how long your life will take,
But, I know it
will not take long.
I DO know how much it can
give;
It will keep on
giving forever.
Glenn W.
Geelhoed, MD
International Medical Education
George Washington University
6 I do not need a title, but if it helps the
cause, you could describe us as a George Washington University Health Team
responding to the needs of our Caribbean neighbors already destitute under the
stress of the recent disasters. We are
mostly all full‑time faculty and students of the George Washington
University, but all of us are self‑sponsored volunteers in international
medical relief. Whatever is needed that
promotes the common cause I would ascent to and assist, under whosever banner
and according to a spectrum of motivations based in compassion, employing the
gift of skills in health care.
In the Home Page cited there is a section on
"Medicine and Health" that may give biographic reasons on the part of
one of us for our interest in response.
I hope this is helpful for
the copy needed on short notice.
Thanks!
GWG
>>> "Batey
Relief Alliance" <bra@bateyrelief.org> 06/23/04 07:47PM
>>>
Dear Dr. Geelhoed,
BRA wants to send out a
pressrelease and an internet notice about the July mission in Jimani and Haiti.
Can you please send me one
or two short paragraph about:
1. how many will travel with
the group and their expertize.
2. what types of assistance
you wish to give to the victims in Jimani and Haiti.
3. what types of medicines
and medical you are bringing with you.
4. what you wish to
accomplish through these relief intervention.
5. one or two quotes to add
in the pressrelease.
6. the correct name of your
group traveling and its connection with the GWU
I need this by tomorrow
morning.
Thanks,
Ulrick
‑‑‑‑‑
Original Message ‑‑‑‑‑
From: Glenn Geelhoed
To: eskpagan@hotmail.com
; swason@howard.edu ; raa1@neoucom.edu ; bryanjschaaf@yahoo.com
Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 2004
1:20 PM
Subject: Fwd: Re: Doc....
I have just scrambled
through an afternoon at the American Airline office, but most of what I have
been doing has been by phone. After an
initial price of something close to $1250 at the office, I called the
"Caribbean vacation office"
(isn't that a nearly ideal way to describe what we are doing in Haiti?)
and they could only book a "vacation package" if hotels were included
and the base package air fare was $754.95 taxes, security charges and handling
excluded
Not one to discourage
easily, I called the corporate office through my AAdvantage membership and
negotiated for a group rate, which started out at the same $754.95 but after
three more calls and under heavy restrictions (see following) I got it to a
$500 base rate for twenty (20) tickets if confirmed by signature on the faxed
contract to be forwarded to you by June 24, with taxes and other charges added
coming to $602.00. The Confirmation Code
is JDJHDZ, and the itinerary is as described below. There is a $100 per ticket penalty for any
person backing out of any seat already sold, since we have taken up most of one
flight after the other two were already too crowded to book us all on return
from PAP, and each of the group tickets is allowed one name change per ticket
if done by July 2. The full list of
names as they appear on passports is due before then, at which point I will be
billed on my AmEx card for the lot on July 2
The itinerary is as follows:
19/7/'04 Mon 8:30 AM‑‑DCA‑‑MIA‑‑Santo
Domingo, DR 3:09 PM
Work in Jamina, DR, through
BRA July 20‑‑24
Ground transport with
Passport Clearance at border by BRA July 25 and visas processed in advance for
Haiti
July 26‑‑29,
work in Thumonde and Cange
July 30 early AM‑‑ground
transport early arranged by Project MediShare Ellen Powers to PAP
July 30 Arrival in PAP 2 1/2
hours before departure at 2:45 PM from Haiti
July 30 Friday 2:45 PM PAP‑‑MIA‑‑DCA
10:29 PM
I will fax the itineraries
and terms to you to be sent foreword to Ellen and Ulrick, and I will be
prepared to sign the contract on June 24 if all the names are ready to be sent
in a single list as their passport states their names.
The urgency in booking can
be seen by the full flights leaving PAP and the "travel warning"
issued not only as to the environment there politically, but also the condition
of the roads and weather. American
Airlines considers this a special deal for the humanitarian purposes of this
mission, and I was not hesitant to add that each of us would be carrying an
extra box at check‑in for the travel packs and medical kits issued (to be
distributed from my house where they are being received later this week.)
We are fully supplied with
the necessary translators, and ground logistics by persons knowledgeable in the
area (as we have been practiced in this previously) and I am grateful for their
support‑‑as I am for yours.
This outreach on your part inot a far more real world, in an intensely
educational application of what you know, what you can do (which will be
stretched) and the motivational reasons why you might wish to join such a
"Caribbean vacation" arrives in your careers at exactly the same age
and stage as I did my first medical mission abroad‑‑in precisely
the same place and conditions. I was an
innocent medical student working in Santo Domingo on a child survival
rehdration project during the interlude of the invasion of Lyndon Johnson's
82nd Airborne Rangers inot the fierce DR Civil War on my first mission to
Republica Dominicana ‑‑only 39 years and 159 medical missions ago!
Bon Voyage!
GWG
>>> Glenn Geelhoed
06/22/04 12:03PM >>>
OK‑‑you received
the med list to fax to Ulrick, and the blank form for the MAP order. Then I submitted two orders, one for each
country (Haiti and the DR) for MAP's own requirements, to be shipped UPS to my
home ASAP The cost is $500 to us, for
what is probably about $26,000 in wholesale value, but I usually declare it for
Customs regs as the UPS shipping cost.
It has the "GIFT" bill of lading with all the caveats, to be
used only by my license and its supervision, and the distribution free under
the licensing authority of my extended credentials.
I hope you can relay this on
to Paul Farmer, Ellen Powers and Ulrick Gaillard by fax, since you have their
numbers and I do not.
I just spoke with Skip
Williams, who has said he would love to accompany us, but will be covering
President Trachtenberg during the month of July‑‑and gives us his
blessings.
I am on the way to the AA
office to negotiate for a block of 20 tickets, for which they will need names
after I secure the block.
I hope all the faxes of each
order and the drug list arrived, and I will keep on the transit time frame
suggested by Ulrick.
Cheers!
GWG.
>>> Bryan Schaaf
<bryanjschaaf@yahoo.com> 06/21/04 11:32AM >>>
Doc G,
Attached, please find an
email from Ulrick. We need to move on this. Can you give me a call please. 202‑256‑9698.
I feel like if we wait too much longer, this may fold.
Could you call American
Airlines and see about reserving a block of tickets and possibly getting a
discount rate? Im not sure I can get away from work.....The Secretary is
getting ready to go to Russia and we've been swamped....
Anyways, I hope you get this
and hope to hear from you soon
Bryan