FEB 28: STANFORD UNIVERSITY MEDICAL BLOG, REPORT FROM A VOLUNTEER

SCOPE

Haiti Day 2: At The Hospital

Excerpt:
"On my afternoon tour of the hospital on Friday, from the post-op ward to the pre-op ward to pediatrics, as the tragedies multiply, it's this strength of the Haitian people that weakens me most.

The smile of the horribly burned teenage girl who we repeatedly pass in the hallway. The patient eyes of the young man holding the stump of his right leg in the air for the doctor to examine. The single mother of the young woman lying paralyzed in a hospital bed, holding her fifth child, a baby boy, in her lap and singing soft lullabies. And I can't catch my breath.

The little girl with the orange ribbon in her hair that matches her orange socks. The teenage boy turning his back in a hospital corner to apply deodorant. Injured mothers nursing babies. A 5-year-old boy helping his horribly burned 2-year-old sister do her physical therapy.

The heat becomes nearly unbearable."