Received: Tuesday January 25, 2010 @ 20:40

To All,

Hope you had a Great Day! After another comfortable night sleep in my Beautyrest bed (see attached photo) and bucket bath shower, we headed back to the hospital to face the challenges and take care of those in need. Each day our team works better and better together rounding on patients, prioritizing care and taking care of business. It is always wonderful for me to see all the transitions in the hearts of those doing the work and providing the care. You will see pictures of Steve Schutzer, MD and I taking of a patient in need of a washout if her above knee amputation and set her up for the next stage of recovery. You will see a picture of a very common problem that we have been treating and that is a crush injury to their extremity and especially their feet. The de-gloving injuries have been common. As a result, we have developed a relationship with a plastic surgery clinic two blocks away that will provide follow-up care for all the wounds that we have cleaned up and in need if skin grafts or wound care. This has been a great relief to the team that those that we care for will be provided care. In addition the local docs and nurses have begun to show up and begin to integrate into the care system and therefore will be able to provide follow-up care. We are still in desperate need of additional supplies and have been taping into any sources that we are aware of. If we can get more sterile packs for surgery, we could do even more.

Our day today began with a host of surgeries that all required a little MacGyver in the team to utilize the equipment that we have to make it work from the modification of reduction devices to fix broken femurs to the creation of wound vac devices to improve wound care management. It is fabulous to see the creativity evolve. I would love to have a Home Depot with an unlimited account to tap into. We would go wild! While many of us were operating this morning, Dr. Z, a trauma surgeon and others would head into the core of the city to the main soccer field to triage patients and send them to our hospital for treatment. The patients somehow would get to the hospital before he and his team would even return. Following the second wave of surgeries, I recruited a local to help me transport a patient to the Plastic Surgery hospital with the French team and following the admission of the patient I went to begging for supplies. When I went to the OR, the French Orthopedist was starting to operate on one of our Patients that we send yesterday that needed a femoral rodding with equipment that we did not have but they did and I scrubbed in to join her to complete the task. It was fun to see the difference in techniques as we were able to fix this patients femur fracture and hopefully get her aback on her feet. Following, I went back to begging and was able to get 7 sets of crutches we desperately needed. As I was headed back to our hospital with all these crutches in tow, our friends from the Mount Sinai Hospital in NY drove by and were talking about it when I got back to the house for dinner. We all laughed when they realized it was ME. The Mount Sinai group will be headed back on Wednesday and I hope that we will be able to receive some of their supplies. The search continues.

Tonight we enjoyed a wonderful meal and I saw the first Ice Cube in 5 days. What a pleasant site. The taste of a cold beer was even better. Life's Little Pleasures are the Best! After a good meal, it was back up the hill walk for my bucket bath and a team debriefing and the sharing of stories with my new and dear friends who all share the mission that we are on. Looking forward to my Beautyrest bed and a good nights sleep fending the mosquito's away with my mosquito net.

Thank you all for your wonderful support and prayer. I hope they are all directed to those in the greatest need and that is for the Haitians. We are doing great! Love to all.

Brian
Dr. Parsley