A mark of a special place is one that continually nudges you, inviting you to learn more, and then never ceases to surprise you. Despite four years of following and three years of periodically visiting, I definitely don't know Haiti. I write from Santo Domingo, tomorrow going to spend my Spring Break week in Haiti, mostly PauP. A short time. A new time, hoping to build some relationships within the Haiti advocacy / human rights circles. Also will support and accompany some Haitian university students who are interested in this work, in hopes of beginning a sustained relationship. All of which is completely new to me, but I somehow sense that I should RSVP, again, to Haiti's invitation. Watch, listen, learn, be.
I like to remember my different entry points into any situation, and the emotions they evoke. It's good to remind myself of what changes, and what remains constant always.
Just over one year ago, I entered Haiti to pitch in at the Leogane field hospital. March 1 2010, I anxiously boarded my flight, having just stayed up all night in the Miami airport to answer emails and stew frenetically over the uncertainty of work that lay before me. I was so scared. Yet, over those following months, the people and situations I encountered surprised me in the most beautiful ways, beyond anything I could have imagined.
For tomorrow's entry, I'm not scared. Excited about being surprised, encountering something new in what is Haiti to me--the mystery and complexity, the persistent struggle, the Kompa music beat, the life of streets, the sadness, the spontaneous joy. The belief in freedom, that Neg Mawon p ap janm kraze.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Do global health work in Liberia---please spread this opportunity!
Don't think I've written much about about this yet, but over the last year, I've felt privileged to work with a truly innovative Liberian organization called Tiyatien Health. Founded by survivors of Liberia's civil war, TH partners with local communities to provide care for HIV/AIDS and other chronic diseases. Through a core network of paid community health workers, "accompaniers," TH both treats these complex diseases, and addresses the root issues of poverty and dis-empowerment that perpetuate illness. Some of you friends voted for TH in an online Changemakers competition last year, and we won!
For more info, see here and here
TH is recruiting for two exciting positions: an HIV/AIDS Capacity Building Officer, and a National Health Policy Advisor. Both are 1-year volunteer positions, based in Liberia. RECRUITING NOW. Would be most grateful for sharing this among circles of potentially interested people. Thanks!
Here's the National Health Policy Advisor job description and contact info:
Tiyatien Health National Health Policy Advisor RFA_v1(2)
And the HIV/AIDS Capacity Building Officer one:
HIV_AIDS Capacity Building Officer_v2
For more info, see here and here
TH is recruiting for two exciting positions: an HIV/AIDS Capacity Building Officer, and a National Health Policy Advisor. Both are 1-year volunteer positions, based in Liberia. RECRUITING NOW. Would be most grateful for sharing this among circles of potentially interested people. Thanks!
Here's the National Health Policy Advisor job description and contact info:
Tiyatien Health National Health Policy Advisor RFA_v1(2)
And the HIV/AIDS Capacity Building Officer one:
HIV_AIDS Capacity Building Officer_v2
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Creating a Language
Five weeks back in med school. A few have wondered how I’m doing with the transition of meeting 130 new classmates and going back to basic science filling much of my mind [thank you for asking!]. To answer, I haven’t had much chance to think about it. We are moving SO fast. I feel like a car revving up RPMs, but unable to shift to an easier gear. Perhaps this inability to master any given topic is part of the hidden curriculum: teaching us about the inevitable powerlessness we will someday face in treating real disease... Anyway, I am struggling a lot to understand how a single organ system works, much less how they all jive together.
Despite the self-degrading overwhelmingness and need to titrate much caffeine for bare minimum function, I do understand one thing: we are not so much learning things as we are learning a way to talk about things. And that entry into a new way of speaking… it’s thrilling.
Today, I can at least talk about lung compliance and blood volume status. Couldn't do that a year ago. And, because of “extra” experiences—an awesome global health elective, a rockstar conferences on global non-communicable diseases...—I am expanding my diction beyond the basic science, to articulating a burden of disease and specific (sometimes controversial, often unproven) strategies to keep people well. I don’t know a single aspect of these things in any depth—probably much less depth than my physiology professor will expect for next week’s exam—but I am at least starting to learn a new way of speaking, and someday acting on my words. I am learning a language.
I had a conversation last week that got me thinking about language. We were talking about the discourse of global health as compared to the discourse of spiritually-grounded medicine. Typically, those are different conversations.
Global health people, such as the esteemed participants of last week’s conference, talk freely about community-grounded solidarity and human rights frameworks…systems solutions that translate to clear, deliverable health outcomes. Humanistic medicine people talk about the way illness “disturbs a soul” (as Daniel Sulmasy writes), and the privilege of healthcare providers encountering a patient’s suffering, and sometimes healing... though not always in the obvious ways. Panning away from health alone, Notre Dame made me much familiar with the most personal aspects of social justice—that we must intentionally sustain our own work, because we believe what Oscar Romero said, that “we are workers, not master builders...we are prophets of a future not our own.”
So, I wonder: might we find ways to merge those conversations? A rights-based solidarity approach, an appreciation for the spirit of people in health and illness, and an intentional long view that keeps us moving as individual members of a incomprehensibly grand whole...how do we talk about these ideas? I can think of a few common words—compassion, suffering with, momentum, focus, justice, trust, hope. Much remains to be said.
So, back in medical school, I am learning a browbeatingly difficult language. Wish me luck. Perhaps I might also help create a language.
Despite the self-degrading overwhelmingness and need to titrate much caffeine for bare minimum function, I do understand one thing: we are not so much learning things as we are learning a way to talk about things. And that entry into a new way of speaking… it’s thrilling.
Today, I can at least talk about lung compliance and blood volume status. Couldn't do that a year ago. And, because of “extra” experiences—an awesome global health elective, a rockstar conferences on global non-communicable diseases...—I am expanding my diction beyond the basic science, to articulating a burden of disease and specific (sometimes controversial, often unproven) strategies to keep people well. I don’t know a single aspect of these things in any depth—probably much less depth than my physiology professor will expect for next week’s exam—but I am at least starting to learn a new way of speaking, and someday acting on my words. I am learning a language.
I had a conversation last week that got me thinking about language. We were talking about the discourse of global health as compared to the discourse of spiritually-grounded medicine. Typically, those are different conversations.
Global health people, such as the esteemed participants of last week’s conference, talk freely about community-grounded solidarity and human rights frameworks…systems solutions that translate to clear, deliverable health outcomes. Humanistic medicine people talk about the way illness “disturbs a soul” (as Daniel Sulmasy writes), and the privilege of healthcare providers encountering a patient’s suffering, and sometimes healing... though not always in the obvious ways. Panning away from health alone, Notre Dame made me much familiar with the most personal aspects of social justice—that we must intentionally sustain our own work, because we believe what Oscar Romero said, that “we are workers, not master builders...we are prophets of a future not our own.”
So, I wonder: might we find ways to merge those conversations? A rights-based solidarity approach, an appreciation for the spirit of people in health and illness, and an intentional long view that keeps us moving as individual members of a incomprehensibly grand whole...how do we talk about these ideas? I can think of a few common words—compassion, suffering with, momentum, focus, justice, trust, hope. Much remains to be said.
So, back in medical school, I am learning a browbeatingly difficult language. Wish me luck. Perhaps I might also help create a language.
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