Reflections from Jay Tew - 10

Jay Tew recently returned to Haiti for a fourth rotation as lead clinician at Klinik Hanger. The next several blog posts are reflections from Jay about his most recent trip.

June 7, 2012

The clinic is closed today because it is a religious holiday in Haiti, and the clinic observes the holidays of Haiti. Some of my Haitian friends invite me to a sacred religions waterfall to celebrate the day in the cleansing waters. We travel very far up the mountain to a magnificent waterfall called Seau d'eau. People light candle for prayer and bath in the pool beneath. We trek up the falls to the top where the fall feels like a load of gravel build dumped on you from above. We spend the better part of the day here. It still amazes me to see such despair and then see such beauty in the same place.

Reflections from Jay Tew - 9

Jay Tew recently returned to Haiti for a fourth rotation as lead clinician at Klinik Hanger. The next several blog posts are reflections from Jay about his most recent trip.

June 5 – 7, 2012

There has been steady work in the Klinik, mostly fabrication and a few walk-ins these couple of days. Josef has left for Port-au-Prince. He is needed there to help with organization of a second prosthetic relief center. My German friend, I will miss you. I wish I had a little more time to work with him. It is a great thing to share your clinical and personal time with people from all over the world. You can learn so much from others whether it’s technical ideas or philosophical. Other than the purest form of giving and helping others who can’t help themselves, one of the most rewarding experiences is working over the past three years with all the Hanger and other volunteers here in Haiti. Getting to learn and take a little bit of each of them to make me into a better prosthetist and I believe, person as well, is priceless. I know I am not the same person who arrived in Haiti that Feb. 2010. I have been taken out of my bubble where my mind has expanded greatly and I’m a better person today. I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world!

Reflections from Jay Tew - 8

Jay Tew recently returned to Haiti for a fourth rotation as lead clinician at Klinik Hanger. The next several blog posts are reflections from Jay about his most recent trip.

June 4, 2012

Today is a great day – everyone works the day through like a well-oiled machine. We are picking up orthotic pediatric patients every day. We had two more today for night splints, and one of the children was a little girl. She was nine-years-old, but about the size of a four-year-old. She was a sweet child with nothing but smiles.

One of our prosthetic practitioners, Alex, hurt his back at home. I believe it to be compression fracture of the lumbar (lower spine). He saw a doctor at the hospital and he said to brace it and don’t lift anything for a few weeks. This was a perfect time for him to learn about custom lumbar sacral orthosis (LSO). We all got together and casted Alex for his LSO. We filled, modified it, and instructed the whole way through the process using a broken branch from a tree, two pieces of a ½ round rasp and electrical tape. The guys learned the basics of bracing, above and below the injury. Then we pulled the LSO and trimmed it out to fit Alex. I only explained what and why we were doing the steps but the technicians did all the measurement, modifications, fabrication and fitting. The LSO fit very well and Alex is pleased and very proud of the work.

  

Reflections from Jay Tew - 7

Jay Tew recently returned to Haiti for a fourth rotation as lead clinician at Klinik Hanger. The next several blog posts are reflections from Jay about his most recent trip.

June 2 -3, 2012

This weekend I have off, so I have time to meditate and scout around the town and countryside. I take long walks and visit my friends down the corridor of Deschapelles. A group of friends are going to the public beach and ask me to come along. I agree and we take a tap tap to St. Marc then to Armani beach. We sit most of the day talking and enjoying our solitude. The UN soldiers are here and having their r & r. It all seems so normal to be here; I never thought I would be doing this in a million years. Then I remember the guy walking down the wall behind me whistling, twirling a shotgun and it merrily brings me back to reality; I think he’s the security guard.

Reflections from Jay Tew - 6

Jay Tew recently returned to Haiti for a fourth rotation as lead clinician at Klinik Hanger. The next several blog posts are reflections from Jay about his most recent trip.

June 1, 2012

Today is another consistent day of patient flow. It consisted of adjustments, walk in patients, a new bilateral below-knee patient, and a new above-knee patient. Our pediatric population is growing; we had three more knee-ankle-foot orthosis night splints for the hospital today. Rickets, a disorder that leads to softening and weakening of the bones, is still commonly seen here.

Reflections from Jay Tew - 5

Jay Tew recently returned to Haiti for a fourth rotation as lead clinician at Klinik Hanger. The next several blog posts are reflections from Jay about his most recent trip.

May 30, 2012

Today we fabricate most of the day and see a few walk in patients. One of the big projects of the day is reorganizing components, mainly feet. We have a great deal of boxes of feet from Physicians for Peace that we need to organize in the bins. If we don’t take time to organize, things will not flow when we’re busy.

May 31, 2012

Feet, feet and more feet! We try to finish our feet project today; even Roselean and her friend are helping. We finally finish later in the day. We spend most of the day talking about our objectives for the future. We go over orthotic principles of control and stabilizing of the body. We have mainly seen amputees in the clinic, but now we are starting our orthotic objective.