Haiti on my mind

The morning of February 8th, 2006 I was assigned to videotape the 2nd Annual International Emergency Medicine Conference which took place in the huge event space at the Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital located at Columbia University Medical Center. It featured five medical professionals who were involved in a variety of international emergency medical care situations throughout the world – in Darfur, Pakistan, Africa and Iraq after the U.S. invaded it - while the audience of over 300 included medical providers, researchers and public health advocates from all over the NYC tri-state area. Before and after it I secured the signatures of all the presenters on a program flier.

The reason I bring this particular in-person acquisition of mine to your attention is of course because of the current emergency situation in Haiti – the devastation, huge numbers of dead and injured, and need for medical aide, food and water as a result of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck near Port-au-Prince… and because one of the presenters at the conference was Christophe Fournier, the current President of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières, a deeply respected international medical humanitarian organization.

In addition to signing the program flier, Fournier also agreed to autograph a brochure about the medical humanitarian work Doctors Without Borders was still providing in Pakistan after an October 8, 2005 earthquake there killed 79,000. It was a privilege to meet Christophe and the other participants.

Check out the images of the ephemera and autographs I obtained at the conference and posted in the All Photos section of AML!. They include the copy of a 1999 statement from the Norwegian Nobel Committee announcing it awarded Doctors Without Borders the Nobel Prize, and a map that shows the locations in over 70 countries (including the U.S.) where the organization has run hospitals and clinics, operated feeding centers for malnourished children, carried out vaccination campaigns and other essential health care.

Finally, if you or someone you know is still undecided as to which medical humanitarian organization to make a monetary contribution to regarding the situation in Haiti, do consider Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières... or some of the other groups listed within the following link I found posted on the 9/11 List-Serv:

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/haiti-disaster-relief-h...

And stay safe, Michael Ragsdale.