Home Sweet Home

Hello everyone!!
I am home from Haiti. Emily Ann has a legal guardian in Haiti and I am one of her Marin's. It is like a god mother but we are financially responsible. I am not the only one, but technically I am named on the legal document... I have had to do a lot explaining. I hope it is only a temporary situation. I am trying to get her adopted out to the States. She has a wonderful wonderful caretaker in Haiti. She is a night nurse for the hospital. She would take care of Emily at night. Legally Emily, until we had her declared "abandoned," lived at the hospital. This was brought about because of all the legal problems in February with a few Americans taking Haitian children that were not technically orphaned to the US. or at least to Dominican Republic.
Luckily we had a lot of legal advice so we did not get into trouble trying to do something helpful. Anyway she is in Haiti. I will be setting up a fund of sorts hopefully to keep her and her new family supported and also to get money for her to be adopted. The night nurse, Natacha, asked us to find her a good family. She will take care of her while in Haiti so that she does not go to an orphanage.




I graduated barely a week ago. I am an official Medical Doctor! I still have a lot to learn, and do not feel any smarter because of this new title. It was good to see all the people around me for graduation. I was watching the end of RUDY the other night. As corny as that story is, I always tear up when Rudy finally gets to play (see movie for full details) anyway the movie does this great job of panning in on everyone that helped in on his journey. His family: parents, and brother, his tutor, the groundskeeper, his teammates, all the people that helped him get to that moment. That is what I felt on the Friday night I graduated. I had my best friends: Norah, Emily, Sara, Austin, Justin was there too, my roommates: Emily, Lindy, Christina my real family: Mom, Dad, and Lisa my sister, (my other sister Tiffany had her senior show to run and we both could not be at each other events) my friends whom have taken the roles of family in my life during some of my hardest struggles: Gary and Kay with Steve from Ames, Mary Kay and Gregg from Minnesota. Dr. Buresh hooded me. He is one of the co coordinators of the Haiti hospital, he also gave our graduation address, I hugged him and he told me how proud he was of me. I came off the stage and someone called my name. It was an Internal Medicine doctor, Dr. Rosenberger, in Des Moines. he gave me some good advice when I was on service with him, "know what you know, know what you dont know, and dont confuse the two." He is also the step father of the fiance of one of my classmates. My classmate died last year in a car wreck. His son is now almost a year old, and the whole family was there for the graduation. All these people have meant more than the world to me at some point along my journey. They were able to be there for one of my successes and I felt the impact all the more because of it.

My diploma incidentally says: Kristina Louise Sinnott has honorably completed all requirements for a medical degree. After the year I had with myself and my class being investigated for dishonorable behavior, I looked down at that and felt I earned that and I felt really good about it.

I now leave for Grand Rapids Michigan to begin a transition year residency. I am renting a condo. Please come visit any time. I do not know what lies ahead for me this year or the coming years. I continue to live the mystery of it all, some days better than others. It is a new racing season, there are lots of Triathlons in Grand Rapids so I look forward to that. There is a Church in walking distance, the hospitals are all in biking distance. I cannot really complain, I am nervous and more than neurotic about it but things are overall well. More updates to follow but right now I have nothing conclusive to report!
blessings and peace to you
kristina MD

Another Day Another Dollar

Sunday night has passed, and everything has quieted down for a time.
I am tired but feel good.
Teams come in on Saturday and they get oriented and ussually Sunday is the day that they realize they are practicing medicine in a disaster zone and Haiti. Some react in different ways, "we are not prepared for this, this was not in the job description. I know what needs to be fixed in order to run this hospital. I can save Haiti in a week, just give me the right tools" I listen and slowly my eyes glaze over, or I find myself repeating myself week to week. Mostly though I apologise and say sorry we cannot meet your expectations. This ussually causes some moment of reflection.
Moments of Reflection, this week I have noticed Leogane is slowly waking up from its slumbering depression. Haitians on the street are no longer greeting me with friendly "Hey You" now it is, "Blan, give me one dollar" or "I am hungry, give me something to eat" the refugee camps have stopped distributing daily rations, and Haitians are starving again, it is not fair. It is also time for me to be leaving I think. I do not know how to answer these questions, and there is no amount of money or time I can spend here to fix it.

Today is Wednesday night and I am finally back to my blog. We have a little newborn back with us. This newborn was delivered to a hospital in Port au Prince that had a ventalator. She arrived in a dump truck with a nurse and tech keeping her breathing and from cardiac arrest. After that they picked me up from the airport. 6 weeks ago now. She is back here. She was abandoned at birth so we are finding a family to adopt her in the states. We are bringing her back here to get a birth certificate and start the adoption process.

Life is good here. I cannot complain. Somedays are worse then other but overall it is tolerable.

The Grind...

I was walking through the broken streets of Leogane Haiti, looking at the collapsed houses. The second stories just collapsed on the first stories. Houses folded in on themselves. People, long dead were in some of them. My first thoughts were Superman could have lifted that up and gotten trapped people out. I kept walking but I began to dwell on the absurdity of how my mind works. Of course Superman would not be here in Leogane. He lives in Metropolis, Batman in Gotham City, Will Smith's Hancock in Miami or in California, Spiderman in New York, Luke Skywalker in a Galaxy far far away, no one lives in Haiti. Why? The place that needs super human hope, love, and strength. I need to stop watching comic book movies. Its convient to help out a trapped citizen of some developed city get out of one scrape. can comic book characters help an entire nation get out of several scrapes? Say, a lack of infrastructure. How would super human strength work that one out... I realize I sound jaded and cynical but the disaster area is starting to stablize and things are reminding me of what it was like living here 7 years ago. Somethings have changed but an undeveloped infrastructure has not.
I wonder what will happen after I leave in May. Did I make any difference? Yes our hospital has been successful through this crisis but is it going to sustain the lack of resources, Haitian management that may or may not be fully committed to keeping this hospital going. My favorite poem comes to mind right now. Rudyard Kipling, "If", "If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, and lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss;" I feel like this is not my life's work but I have put in so much energy and effort.
I have met with plenty of well meaning people telling me how to run a hospital. My fellow medical students, yes professional medical students, and I work to keep patients alive, keep a count of our donations of drugs, supplies, and keep teams semi organized. Yes there are things I do not like about our hospital. I cannot keep an accurate inventory no matter how many hours volunteers and I spend counting, we do not have enough money to finish building our clinics, and other unfinished things. Yes things do not get done... you are not doing anyone any favors by telling us how to run a third world hospital during a disaster zone.
I like my job, but it is coming to an end. I am watching as the refugee camps slowly stop handing out daily rations to the dwellers of the camp. They have returned to pre earthquake state of being, starvation. What will happen when we leave? the hospital will close down? We face this, it is a real possibility. No one can help the Haitian except the Haitians themselves. I have been refocusing my energy these last few weeks with the simple goal: What will happen when I am gone? Will this get done by anyone else? If the answer is no, then I set it aside and let it be. It may be important to me but it is not to the Haitians. Therefore it is really not important. there is a certain freedom in that decision. It lets me do things that are important well.

April Fools Day!

Today I am struggling and it is only 7am here. It is April Fools Day so I am hoping this is all a joke.
Two days ago a one year old coded at the hospital because she had been struggling to breath for 24 hours with an Oxygen tank. We do not have any ICU capabilities. I found a transport to Port Au Prince. The hospital I found in PAP has a ventilator, if the it was not already occupied would have the capability of taking her. I basically jumped on a person who was nice enough to drop some of our arriving team members to Leogane. He lived in Port Au Prince and was returning that night. I grabbed him and said, "can you take a 1 year old baby with you. I will get someone to explain to you where to go. I am sending a Haitian Nurse with you, and the mom." I took him over to the hospital. He of course had no choice but to say yes. We got there in time to help with the code. We worked on her for 20 to 30 minutes. That was a hard one for our team. She just needed a break from breathing and we have medical technology out there in the world to help her, it just was not here. The day I arrived to Haiti I was picked up in a dump truck. This same truck was used as an ambulance that morning to transport a nurse, a tech and a newborn in respiratory distress to a hospital able to take her. I know this situation well.We are a hospital working with the kindness of several other people and their cars to get our patients to any other hospital that is better equipped for patients we just do not have the capacity or ability to treat, on top of providing care we do have here.

I am facing the same problem today. I have a 17 year old girl that has Cardiomyopathy and we had to amputate her leg. Her Kidneys are now failing. There is dialysis in Port au prince again. The hospital is ready to accept her. I just do not have a car. I was also contacting Haiti Hearts, for her needed heart surgery. I do not know the line here between futile measures and reasonable measures. Can she survive here with all these problems? I am working so hard to give her that chance. Do I risk burn out myself?

It is now almost 8am, I found a truck that we can fit her into and get her to Port au prince. I am sending an American Nurse and a driver. it is not an ambulance but it is a vehicle. It is so close to working I am not sure if I am working too hard to get her somewhere else to die, or if I am giving her hope. I know that is not a question for me to answer. But I ask it anyway.

this field hospital is symbol of hope to everyone in this area. We work with Doctors without Borders hospital as well. Our field hospital is what is left of the haitian hospital and it represents a symbol to the haitians and the people of Leogane. All the organizations are collaborating to build this hospital, sometimes there is friction, sometimes frustration, but ultimately we are all trying to improve Leogane Haiti in our own way.

She is off. I put her in a double door cabin, a nurse, with an ambo bag, some medications, and a trusty driver. I called the ER in Port au Prince. They can expect her in an hour and half.
I said goodbye to her sisters, the only family she has now. I told them to be strong and now I am back to the regular day of finding funding, convincing people to buy a car/ambulance, paying salaries, the normal Hospital adminastration things that never seem to end.

Just a few thoughts from my part of the world, on this beautiful april fools day!

Haiti the first few weeks

3/22/10
Hello, hello, hello!!

I have been at the job less than a week. I have been handling it okay. I am a little nervous about when my predessesor leaves, how I will handle the stress. Abbey is a medical student and in the same class as I am at U of Iowa. She and I are the World Wide Village coordinators for Leogane, Haiti. We represent WWV, University of Notre Dame, University of Iowa, La Hopital St. Croix, the Episcopal Church in Leogane, the United States... Needless to say I have to keep my temper in check and mind how I say things. Both are weaknesses I have to work on, so I welcome it begrudingly!

I am working with a Notre Dame volunteer, Brennan. She has taken a year off of medical school to help with Disaster Relief and Medical care. She speaks Kreyol very well, and is kind of my partner for scheduling, administrating, and coordinating. She is coordinating the surgical teams, and handling most finances. We are still feeling out our roles, but I am definately on supplies. I am getting a handle on our medicines and our medical supplies. Everyone has been generous but we did not know what we had. The Hands on Disaster Relief volunteers have come in and offered logistics support. I know now what we have in our pharmacy and our stock room. To say they are a God send is an underestimation!!


3/26/10
Hello everyone!!

I am alive and well in Haiti. I am busy, and my internet connection is sketchy at best. Whenever I get a chance to send an email it is to organize or request something with the hospital or clinic that I am working in. I am an onsite coordinator for World Wide Village Health Initiative in Leogane. (worldwidevillage.org)
There are two of us here, we have teams coming down every week to staff the hospital and clinic. We spend a lot of time orienting, addressing dire medical situations, translating, keeping diplomatic ties and relationships with Haitians, NGOs, and our partner organizations.

I just do not feel like fighting to post a blog with the internet on most days so I have not forgotten anyone, I have just been so busy trying to keep a field hospital and clinic affloat I have not had a moment to myself.

I have a few good things to say. My little haitian boy is a grown young man. ti gari, a little boy that came to live with us when I lived in this house 7 years ago is not a young adolescent man. He has the same beautiful face. My mural I painted is present in my old room and I am incidently in that room again. Most of the street kids I used to hang out with are older, a few died in the earthquake... One mother I knew lost 4 of 5 of her children. Her grandmother who is also my Haitian grandmother broke her leg. I got her into see the Orthopedist and she seems to be healing well.

I sweat all day long while I am running between clinic, hospital, and odd jobs. I get a run in most days to the coast where there is a group of children that join us for a little while. I am always watched where ever I go and little kids love to yell "blan!" which is foriegner or white! I like to teach them my name so they yell some version of my name as I walk or run by.

Overall my spirits are good. I am too busy to think or worry about my future. I am moving to Grand Rapids Michigan next year! I will be doing a one year transition program. I did not match in a General Surgery Residency, but I was strangely relieved to not have to do that. I do not think I like being in the OR as much as I thought I did. So I have a new leash on doctoring. I am going to take a year, get some experience, and apply to a program I would really like to do for my career.

take care,
much love and blessing!
kristina

Crazy Week

Hello from Haiti!!!

I made it here this afternoon. I have lost a pound sweating but gained two pounds of rice, beans, and fried plantain... (okay I really have not but by the time I get back!!)

However I cannot share any pictures with you because my cord to connect my computer and camara are in my checked luggage that is somewhere between here and Chicago!

As are my clothes, my other cool stuff, and some other supplies I was bringing. oh well. I have a couple pairs of underwear and people have scrubs. My tennis shoes are checked as is my big towel. so I am using my hand towel until then, good thing it is micro dry.

I have a room, its actually the same room I lived in when I was here. It still has the mural I painted!!
I did not bring my tent so I was glad to have a room!

I have seen Ti Gary, my little boy that came to live with us when I was here in 2003. He has grown a foot at least, he looks fantastic, he told me he does not know how to read yet. I made him promise me to learn, but I also told him I would not forget my Kreyol. I have forgotten most of it, so I will have a steep learning curve over this week.

I started working almost right away. I am going to be running around administrating the hospital, and getting teams through their week.
Luckily I have a fellow classmate this week until next friday to orient me. I also am working with University of Notre Dame, my former employers here in Haiti!! There is one ND grad and current medical student who will be coming and going while I am here. I am grateful for the support and encouragement!

More info as this week comes to a close!

Take care,

blessings and Irish Cheer!!

kristina

Haiti Bound

Hey everyone!!

I took a little break from traveling to finish up my last rotations in Medical School!!! Hahaha, looks like I am gonna be a doctor!! There were a few times I did not think I would make it! Its been tough mentally, emotionally, and physically. So if I can make it to Graduation May 14 I think I might become a real MD.

As for starting a job that has a paycheck, I speak of residency, I find out monday, the ides of March, no joke!! if I matched or if I am one of the select few who has to scramble into a program next year. It means just that, beg everyone for a spot!
I find out where I matched on Thursday the 18th!
However I will be in Haiti on Skype at that time hopefully!
I leave for Haiti on the 17th! I am gonna ask everyone to drink a guinness for me!
I will be blogging about my experience. But I am basically going to be an onsite coordinator for the World Wide Village NGO organization (Worldwidevillage.org) The University of Iowa is the medical team that is responsible for it being in Leogane Haiti. They are located in the exact same place I was back in 2003. It is really gonna be good to go to a place I called home for a time.
Anyway WWV is setting up a long term hospital for the Leogane people since the hospital collapsed. I will be coordinating teams, administering the clinic, hospital and OR. I am not sure how much medicine I am gonna get to do but I speak Kreyol could volunteer 2 months, and they need some organization, so that is what I will do and get into the OR when I am able!
I will be posting when I am able I appreciate the prayers, support, and the comments!! thank you all for getting me this far on my life journey!

The pictures are of the Hospital and the newly renovated Catholic Church I attended when I lived there. It and the school were leveled and several priests, nuns, and students died in the collapse.