My name is Marc Dadios and I am a second year UC Irvine/CHOC Pediatrics resident who embarked on an amazing journey 2 months ago to Haiti! It all began with a simple text from Dr. Aaron Tabor in December: “Can u do 2 weeks in Haiti in march? I need a peds guy”.

        I’ve known Dr. Tabor since the beginning of medical school. Over the past few years it has been an incredible pleasure to witness his passion for Global Health medicine materialize into his non-profit organization Make a Change International (MACI). His organization helped me embark on a trip to the Philippines during my fourth year of medical school that would continue to shape my love for Pediatrics and Global Health Medicine. Although I’m sure Aaron’s network of doctors now extends throughout the country, I was definitely honored to have been asked to accompany him on his trip to Haiti. Without a second thought I switched my 2 week vacation from my Pediatric residency program to overlap with the Haiti mission trip starting on March 18th. After fundraising for the trip (a sincere thanks to all who donated!), I found myself leaving Southern California to embark on this journey.

This trip would mark my fifth global health mission and my first trip as a doctor with an MD degree. I had a general idea of what to expect in terms of the living conditions of the people living in Haiti. I also spoke to some of my attending physicians at CHOC who have been on mission trips to Haiti in the past and they helped me prepare for different disease processes that our team would encounter. Still… I recognized that while a large part of the reason I was going on this trip was to give as much medical help as I could to the Haitian people that we were going to be serving, I also was fully aware that I was also going for my own personal benefit and growth. I learned that lesson from my first mentor Dr. Guererro after my first medical mission trip to the Philippines. She wisely told me that I should never forget the fact that I had gained more in terms of personal development from the trip than I was really able to give. That simple but powerful statement got me thinking about my purpose on mission trips and why I enjoy participating in them so often.

In my opinion, medical mission work should be consistent, sustainable, and culturally sensitive toward the community that we serve. An interesting article about “voluntourism” was brought to my attention a few months ago and it made me seriously reflect about my past mission trips. I can happily say that for all mission trips except for my first one, the groups that I have been with have exemplified the consistency and sustainability that, I think, are valuable traits for any organization considering mission work in the future. The community of Haitians that we served were displaced by the 2010 earthquake and had been served by previous medical missions sponsored by Dr. Tabor’s organization in the past. Not only was a clinic built in the community, the supplies needed to run the clinic is all provided for as well as the doctor and nursing staff that will work at that clinic 5 days per week which were all made possible by these amazing non-profit organizations. Since I already knew this fact when committing to go on this mission trip, I was very comfortable with participating knowing that the patients that I would see on the trip would have excellent follow up care in the future.

With that said, the dream team on this trip consisted of 1 ER resident doctor, 1 Internal medicine attending, 1 resident pediatrician (me!), 4 amazing ED nurses, 1 pharmacist, and 2 awesome supporting individuals who were critical to the flow of our busy clinic. We saw approximately 500 patients over the course of 5 days and I ended up seeing about 100 super cute kids. The most common disease that I saw were fungal infections of the head, arms, legs, and body as well as worms in the intestines. Luckily, we brought enough medications to treat those infections. I also saw some general pediatric illnesses such as asthma (really dusty areas), eczema, pneumonia, and urine infections. Some of the diseases that I saw were also ones that I knew I couldn’t do anything about at that time such as a child who I was suspicious for an underlying epileptic seizure disorder and one who had an infection at the time he was born and who was now severely developmentally delayed. Our team also discovered a few cases of very high blood pressures in older teenagers which was both unusual and scary. We also did the best we could to care for children who were injured or affected by the 2010 Haitian earthquake and Hurricane Matthew in 2016. I also happily got to see a lot of healthy children walk through our clinic door! Of note, the patients that I saw were being tracked by the community leaders and staff in case I recommended close follow up visits with the local community doctor (who was there every day with us while we worked) to ensure that patients are taking their medications as directed and were getting better.

Personally, I think that the most fun portion of the trip for me were the Pediatric physical exams and well child checks that I was constantly doing. With the help of my friend Mr. Turtle, I performed a lot of developmental milestone checks and gave as much anticipatory guidance that I could give. One key component that I found both encouraging and frankly surprising was the community’s access to clean water. With the help of other mission groups and charities, the community was able to dig deep enough to access the clean groundwater and build a well that is now helping sustain that community and other neighboring communities with clean water. Due to their access to clean water, I noticed that most of the children had clean, white teeth because they were brushing their teeth twice per day. In fact, many of the Haitians who came to clinic to be seen were well dressed with clean teeth even though when we visited their homes they had few other possessions. With that said, the experience that had the greatest impact on me during our trip to Haiti was our team’s work at the God’s Plan Orphanage.

Not only was this my first medical mission trip as a doctor, this was also the first mission trip where I went to an orphanage. Miss Lafleur is the incredible founder and owner of this orphanage. Prior to the 2010 earthquake she also founded and owned a similar orphanage in Port-Au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. Tragically her previous orphanage was destroyed during the earthquake and the orphans under her care at that time were killed by the collapsed building. She was able to somehow muster the strength to rebuild her orphanage in this new community and now she is currently caring for about 50-60 children living at the orphanage. Our team spent one morning treating all the children (yes, basically all of them) for fungal skin infections as well as worms. Words really can’t express my emotions during our time at the orphanage… I literally did not want to leave. In particular, there was a little guy named Edward who essentially won my heart over with his debonair GQ style look. I found out later that he and his older sister were found in front of the orphanage gates about 6 months prior to our meeting dropped off by his previous caregiver. There is a law in America called the Safe Haven Law (a.k.a. the Baby Moses Law) that is present and active in all 50 states. Most states limit the age of who may be placed in a designated “safe haven” drop off points to infants 72 hours old or younger whereas others may accept infants up to 1 month of age. Edward was 18 months old and his sister was not much older when they were essentially abandoned. There was no investigation, no repercussions for the person who dropped them off, and if the orphanage wasn’t there to care for them… little to no hope for survival. It was a very poignant example of the limited resources available to the local people in Haiti.

Back home in Orange County, CA at CHOC Children’s hospital if a child was found abandoned there would likely be a large inquiry with social work, police authorities, and likely a large response from the hospital to find the individual(s) who left their child to be cared for others. That would unfortunately not likely happen in Haiti for a similar situation. Needless to say that there are extremely limited healthcare resources available to sick people in Haiti. The closest government hospital with modern resources to the clinic that we worked at was about 45 minutes to one hour down the mountain via car. If a sick individual did not have the means to pay for care, they simply would not get care. For example, there was a woman who came to clinic with hypotension (low blood pressure) likely secondary to dehydration but we also could not rule out a serious infection. We gave her some intravenous fluids and sent her to this hospital to be seen by the doctors there for further care. She returned to our clinic the next day and told us that she waited all night to be seen but because she couldn’t pay she was simply not seen or cared for. Luckily she was feeling better the next day but had she truly had a serious infection, she may not have survived to return to clinic the next day.

Overall, this was an amazing trip that revitalized and rejuvenated my love for medicine and reminded me of the positive impact that healthcare providers can make on a community. Even though I won’t be able to return to Haiti for a little while, I know that the community we served is well taken care of because there is continuity of care with the local doctor. Furthermore, I also know that future mission trips will bring other types of specialized care to the area. Even though I am writing this 2 months out, the long-lasting impact that this trip has had on my drive to become the best possible doctor I can be is still present. I was definitely feeling a bit burned out midway through my Pediatric residency and after going to Haiti with the Dream Team, I feel ready to continue facing the rigors of continuing medical training. Thank you all for reading and for those who donated to our cause to help make this experience possible!

Here are some other pictures from the trip: (Disclaimer: Some pictures are a bit graphic as they show some skin diseases and other pathology)