| August '12 Team to Honduras Needs Volunteers 1. Non-medical support personnel 2. Library "knowledgeable persons" 3. Pharmacist or "medication knowledgeable" persons. Note from Bruce McFadden Hello, You have all indicated that you are planing to join the August AHMEN endeavor in Honduras. This is a multifunctional trip, in as much as it matches the diversity if the team. There will be five functions for our group. 1. Medical Clinics in several villages along the Caribbean Coast 2. Vision and Eyeglass clinics in the same villages 3. Participation in the International Medical Seminar in Ciriboya 4. Part Three of the SIFAT leadership training meeting in Casuna 5. Tasks associated with the ongoing CHIMES/AHMEN library projects. The majority of the team is "medical" by profession. We will have three MDs, one PA, one NP, one CRNA and a therapeutic masseur. Medical Clinics require more than just doctors to be successful. Accurate dispensing of medication prescriptions, registration and triage, and all the extra need-to-be-dones are just as important. Without success in any aspect, the Clinic affects the event as a whole. The villages we will serve in are in extremely underserved areas of Honduras. These villages are isolated by not only distance, but also ethnicity. Rarely does any medical mission team travel to these areas; it's just too far for the average group. You will be traveling to areas largely beyond the reach of the central government, and certainly beyond good medical care. This is an area where, when times were better, people would go to on Eco-tourism trips. This is the Rio Plátano Biosphere. Most of our patients will be indigenous Miskito and Garifuna. Travel time is a challenge for the first two days. By the end of the second day, we will be in Gracias a Dios where conveyance further is by large canoes along rivers and across lagoons. Accommodations are comfortable, but different than Holiday Inn. We will go first to our most distant clinic village and work back to the West. One of the tasks at these villages is to maintain medical records. We will be bringing computers tracking our patients and continuing broadening electronic medical record database, in hopes of improving continuity of care and improvement of the level of care we provide. When we leave Gracias a Dios and return to Ciriboya and Casuna these sleepy Garifuna villges may well be jumping with visitors from several Central American Countries and Cuba. The Medical Seminar at Ciriboya has grown each yer and we re told that this year will be the biggest. Those of you wishing to present papers or talks at the Conference, please let me know your topic's and a brief bio for the program. I need this information by the 15th of June. The talks should be 15-20 minutes at the longest. The SIFAT meeting will also be a chance to speak, it you want to. Not directed at healthcare professionals, the attendees there are village leaders from the area who have been receiving training in everything from water purity to community involvement for the past three years. This is their final conference. CHIMES/AHMEN have started several libraries in villages throughout the country. This is a chance to assess the success and needs of the program in several of the local villages. Please check you immunization status. According to the CDC we should be up to date for, Hep A, Hep B, Typhoid, Tetanus, and Influenza. As per usual, we will start malaria prophylaxis with Chloroquine two weeks before departure, and continue for four weeks after return. We will be in cellphone reception area for most of our trip. We will you will be able to call home. A few places where will stay have wi-fi. If you use your phone for emails, HondaTel adds a surcharge of $0.20 per Kbyte. That means a picture sent on you I-phone could end up costing you about $6-8. Text messages are also inflated, but not so badly. Of course, you will need a current passport. Check to see that it does not expire within a few months of return. No visas are required. If you have any questions or suggestions call me 205-790-0600 cell Calendar attached --------------- Bruce McFadden, PA-C |