I read a great article by Kevin Edmonds called “The Undermining of Haitian Health Care: Setting the Stage for Disaster” that really made me think. He rightly pointed out, and I totally noticed while I provided emergency and primary medical care to the Haitians, is there is a serious lack of medically trained locals to care for their own people.

I’m not saying there aren’t any, but of those who are qualified, and I use that term rather loosely, they are mostly trained elsewhere. I actually rode into Haiti from the Dominican Republic with a Haitian medical student, who is in this final year at a school in Santo Domingo. I’m not sure if he’s even planing on returning to Haiti, as his wife and family live in New York. One of the doctors I worked with once I got into country, also trained in the DR, is currently in Miami working on passing the USMLE. He may not return either. After all, what’s the point?

There are medical schools in Haiti, but they are almost as scarce as clean water, and few Haitians can afford to attend them anyway. The medical school at the University of Tabarre in Port-au-Prince was the first ever to provide free tuition to students, which is a huge thing. While it withstood the earthquake on January 12, it’s not withstood the many man-made disasters that have occurred in its very short history.

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