Friends Across Borders--FAB

2011-04-08T05:39:00.001-07:00

Escape to Bermuda!

Bid for this trip during the Live Auction at Off the Vine, May 27, 2011!

2011-04-06T09:34:00.000-07:00

Another wonderful Live Auction item at Off the Vine (May 27th): Dinner with Rob and Nancy Sands in the small dining room at Constellation!

2011-03-25T05:04:00.001-07:00

Off the Vine tease....Live Auction packages includes a trip to Italy, which includes airfare and the hotel!

More packages revealed soon...

2011-03-19T17:51:00.000-07:00

You're Officially Invited!

Join us for food, friends, and fun at CMAC May 27, 2011. Off the Vine celebrates all the individuals involved with InterVol's programs. Visit our website for more details or contact simone.stickler@intervol.org for more information.

2011-02-23T10:29:00.000-08:00

SAVE THE DATE

The second annual Off the Vine event on the stage at CMAC will take place on May 27, 2011.

Come ready to "Pour on the Thanks!"

Click on "SAVE THE DATE" above for more details.

2010-08-01T10:18:00.001-07:00

We were accepted! Please notify everyone about our Pepsi Refresh project to give back to more than 200 Rochester Schools! Please go to www.refresheverything.com/intervol and vote for us. You are able to vote everyday for the whole month of August. The top ten projects (those with the most votes!) will receive funding.

InterVol applied for a $50,000 Pepsi Refresh grant in the category of Education. The grant will allow InterVol to expand the local impact of the RUMS (Recovery of Unused Medical Supplies) Program by giving back to the public schools of Monroe County. From microscopes, goggles, and gloves for a science class, to plastic sheets and sponges for an art room. InterVol has the opportunity to give back even more to its community with over 200 Rochester schools potentially benefiting.

PLEASE HELP US Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Refresh our community by voting online or from your mobile phone.

VOTE NOW ONLINE:
Go to http://www.refresheverything.com/intervol

*Please note: By clicking "Vote for this idea" you will be prompted to sign in/create an account.

VOTE BY TEXTING FROM YOUR MOBILE PHONE:

TEXT 101434 to Pepsi (73774).

For more information, please contact rums@intervol.org or call 585-922-5276.

Thank you for your help!

Simone

2010-06-25T08:22:00.001-07:00

Distribution of Collected Materials in Leogane

Here are just a few pictures from the distribution of the collected items in Leogane. There will be plenty more to share after the entire team returns tomorrow.

[Ginny among all the shoes brought to Leogane finding some sneakers that fit]

[Pumping up all the soccer balls we brought]

[Leogane Track Club tshirts before distribution]

[Getting fitted for new sneakers]

[All geared up with their new sneakers, soccer balls, and Valenti tshirts]

[Purchasing food for the children of the Lamb Center]

[Children of the Lamb Center]

2010-06-25T07:55:00.000-07:00

Collections for the Leogane Track Club

Rochester Community's giving spirit continued with another donation of the Constellation jet for a trip leaving on June 20, 2010. The team included healthcare professionals, Constellation representatives and children's running gear and soccer balls to distribute to the Leogane Track Club.

Partnering with Constellation Brands and the Roche ster General Health System to help collect running shoes and soccer balls to benefit the children of Haiti. Both organizations hosted drives for new and gently used shoes to support the cause.

[Collection boxes at RGH]

Between Constellation Brands, Rochester General Health System, and all the local organizations listed below hundreds of pairs of sneakers were collected, along with a variety of sporting equipment and gear! Thank you to all those that contributed!

Rochester Futbol Club

St. Mary's School

Chili Soccer

Harley School

Pittsford Elementary

KB Graphics

CWUS Employees

Brighton Twelve Corners Middle School

Pushyourself.com

Rochester Section V Teams and local college soccer coaches

Valenti Sports

Constellation Pilots

URMC

Wednesday June 16th, volunteers came out to the InterVol warehouse to sort through the sneakers and gear to prepare it for the planes.

2010-06-25T07:39:00.000-07:00

Leogane Track Club

The Leogane Track Club collection was a HUGE success. For those of you that didn't hear the story, let me begin with Sean Farrell and how his club developed...

As InterVol is helping to sustain the field hospital and transition the facility to Haitian administration we are also extending our efforts into the Leogane community. Our volunteers are providing support to a local orphanage destroyed by the earthquake, the Lamb Center, which housed, educated, and fed seventy children. The pastor who runs the orphanage had to send some of the children away following the earthquake, when he ran out of provisions.

[Ruins of the Lamb Center Orphanage]

Depending entirely upon the aid from volunteers at the Hopital Sainte Croix field hospital, they have survived. Donated funds have been turned into purchases of rice and beans to feed the children, but their 600 gallon water tank has been destroyed, leaving them with neither a steady source of water nor a means to store it.

[Lamb Center Children]

Through the efforts of three volunteers, and specially Sean Farrell, the Leogane Track Club was founded. It is a successful program which provides daily exercise for several hundred local children ranging from ages 7 to early teen years. Each afternoon, the club departs from the ND residence at 4:30pm for a run through the local countryside, winding its way through the farmland and sugarcane fields over to the ocean for a swim, and back. This simple group activity has become quite popular with the local children, who line up outside the residence for the University of Notre Dame's Haiti Program (which houses the volunteers for the hospital) urging the adults to come lead them, as well as the local community who routinely offer encouragement as the group comes running along the badly worn, rock and gravel strewn, dirt road.

[Leogane Track Club on a Run]

A small percentage of the children actually have running shoes, with most running in worn out plastic sandals, or some barefoot. The club has submitted a design for track club t-shirts to be produced, bearing the words that the founders would call out as they were running during the formation of the club in mid-February - "Vini...Kouri!" Creole or "Come...Run!"

2010-04-14T11:51:00.000-07:00

Photo: Belizean sunrise

Friday night, all the doctors from the hospital in Dangriga threw me a going away party. They all came out to Hopkins and we met at a bar/restaurant called Northbeach. It was fun. Unfortunately there were a couple of steps there that I didn’t see in the dark, and stepped off, spraining my ankle. I’ve been icing it and swimming for “hydrotherapy.”

Today, unbelievably, is my last day in Belize. It’s been a tough year (actually 9 months), but I’m glad I came. I think most of what I learned was in the area of “personal growth,” and learning to live in a 3rd world country as an “other.” I’m sure my perspective has changed but I probably won’t fully realize that until I’m back in the States.

I've been working on a paper about what I've done here, and am entitling it "Using telemed to improve access to healthcare in Belize: Lessons learned." In the last couple weeks, I've also been teaching staff at the hospital how to use the telemed system, and handing off responsibilities to them. I'm hoping they will take the opportunity and continue using telemed, so they can have access to the InterVol specialist physicians and continuing education.

After I leave here, I’m doing a couple of international medical school electives, and then will finish my 4th year of med school back in Rochester, starting in August. Thanks to everyone who has been reading this blog! --Tina

P.S. I've come to enjoy blogging, so I have decided to start a blog of my own for my personal future travels/adventures. Please feel free to visit it, at the following address: http://tinagaud.blogspot.com.

2010-04-08T11:58:00.000-07:00

Photo: Toucan seen on early morning bike ride.

It’s been awhile since I’ve written, because things have been very busy. The passage of time seems to have been accelerating for the last several weeks, as my time in Belize is coming to an end.

Some of the things that have happened over the last several weeks:

Two groups of InterVol doctors came to Dangriga, for a week each. We had a very productive 2 weeks while they saw patients and did surgeries.

Photo (below): Me, changing the dressing on a young patient who had surgery by Dr. Tim O’Connor, an InterVol plastic surgeon.

My family (my mom, dad, and brother) came and visited me for a week. We went to Tikal, a famous Mayan ruin site across the border in Guatemala. At the border to Guatemala, the Belizean authorities would not let me leave Belize, because I had neglected to extend my visa for the last 2 months. They made me go back to Belmopan, the capital, to pay the fees to extend my visa. This caused the trip to Tikal to take an extra day. When I got back to Hopkins, several people told me that the immigration guy was likely fishing for a bribe and that I probably could have saved myself a lot of time had I offered one. After nine months living here, I'm still pretty naive when it comes to these things.

Photo (below): Spider monkey in Tikal.

Upon returning from Tikal, I found out that my house had been broken into and I had been robbed. Among the things the thief stole were small electronics (cell phones, ipods), money, and a bottle of lime juice (!).

Additionally, the thief ate half a banana and left the other half on top of the refrigerator, presumably forgetting the other half when he discovered the lime juice. Thankfully, I had my computer and passport with me, and no one was hurt.

Photo (above): Baby crocodile who hangs out near my house.

In smaller news, I discovered 2 scorpions in my house, one of which was in my bed...

Now, with only one week left here in Belize,I can't believe I've been here all this time, and I can't believe I'm about to leave!

Photo: Me, under a waterfall discovered on a hike with my family.

2010-02-17T09:33:00.001-08:00

Photo: The adorable and very loud parrots that fill the air with squawks at 7 every morning.

In clinic today, we had some interesting patients --

A 53-year-old Garifuna woman came in with an incisional hernia -- no problem, we'll repair it. However, she also complained of vertigo, and asked us if it was due to "wind in the head." I was intrigued by this comment. In traditional Chinese medicine, wind is one of the elements that can cause imbalances and subsequent health problems. However, I think the idea of wind as this woman was talking about was different. Dr. Pott told me that it is a fairly common Garifuna belief that wind, or air, can actually get in a person's head, or shoulder, or other body part, and cause problems.

A young man in his 20's came in for followup on several huge gashes he had acquired during a machete fight. The man was in good spirits, considering a 6-inch wound on his head, a 10-inch wound across his shoulder blade that unfortunately was infected and oozing, and a healing thumb which looked like it had nearly been cut off.

A 10-year-old diabetic girl came in with a ganglion cyst on the top of her foot. The cyst was not so interesting, but when I looked down at her hands in her lap, her right hand had 2 thumbs. I had seen this in textbooks before, but never on a real patient.

2010-02-15T08:28:00.000-08:00

One thing I have grown to love here in Belize is Marie Sharp’s habanero pepper sauce. Belizeans call it simply “pepper.” It’s the hot sauce of the country, and it’s everywhere, in every restaurant and corner store. I eat it every day. Over the course of the last 7 months, I’ve worked my way up from Mild, to Hot, to Fiery Hot, to Belizean Heat, to Not for Wimps, and recently graduated to the hottest of the hot, named BEWARE Comatose Heat Level. The label states the following:

Keep out of reach of children. Avoid contact with eyes or skin. Got water? Do not play tricks on the weak or elderly with this sauce.

At this point, I think the nerve endings in my taste buds are singed down to little nerve stubs. As a devoted Marie Sharp’s fan, I visited the Marie Sharp’s factory over the weekend, where they make all the varieties of pepper sauce, as well as jams and juices. I got to taste various ones, such as banana jam, pineapple jam, and coconut spread. Delicious!

2010-02-12T09:09:00.000-08:00

Some days, it seems like nothing happens. Yesterday, it seemed like everything happened. First thing in the morning, I teleconferenced in to grand rounds at Rochester General Hospital for a fascinating case presentation on sarcoidosis. Two doctors at the hospital here attended with me.

Then, I assisted on surgeries with Dr. Pott, one of which was an open cholecystectomy (gall bladder removal). Although I saw many cholecystectomies during my Surgery rotation last year in medical school, they were all done laparoscopically. Yesterday was the first time I saw it done as an open procedure (we don’t have laparoscopy here in Dangriga), and seeing the internal organs rekindled my wonder and fascination with the human body and general surgery.

In the afternoon I drove to Belmopan, the capital of Belize, to meet with the CEO of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Peter Allen. This meeting was incredibly productive for me. For the first time, I felt like my services were actually welcomed in Belize. From the day I arrived in Belize, I had the impression that the doctors and staff at the hospital didn’t really want the telemed program I’m trying to implement. Early in the project, one of the people I needed help and cooperation from most seemed set on working against me. I won't go into details, but suffice it to say I was encountering unnecessary barriers. One important one was that I was told I couldn’t see patients unless they were referred by a Belizean doctor. And getting referrals from doctors here is like pulling teeth. My project seemed doomed in this context. As a result, I spent much of the last few months feeling frustrated, like my hands were tied, like I wasn’t making any impact.

However, Dr. Allen informed me that there is no need for doctors here to be involved in order to do a telemed consult. This changes everything! My project as I had imagined it in the beginning is actually possible after all. Dr. Allen gave me the OK to set up clinic here at the hospital, to triage patients for telemed consultation. This could dramatically increase the use of telemed, because although doctors are less than enthusiastic about telemed, patients are desperate for it. Sometimes when I’m walking around the hospital in my scrubs, especially if I have a stethoscope around my neck, people waiting in hallways are begging me to see their family member, and when I tell them I’m a medical student and not a doctor, they don’t care.

I only wish I had met with Dr. Allen earlier in my fellowship, because at this point I only have 2 months left here. However, I’m going to make the most of these next 2 months. And, over the last seven months, I have succeeded in building relationships with hospital staff, and likely, over time they will warm up to telemed once their patients start requesting it.

Finally, at the end of the day yesterday, I was able to obtain some x-rays to send to a Rochester surgeon, for a desperate young woman that we’re trying to bring to Rochester for a surgery to save her leg. That story, to be continued...

Photo: Workers loading oranges from a smaller truck into a larger truck. The scent of fresh citrus wafts through the air!

2010-02-04T10:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday in clinic I saw a 3-year-old boy who had been developing normally until he was a year and a half, then started regressing back developmentally, to younger and younger stages. Essentially he’s becoming brain damaged, but we don’t know why. Some of the causes for this scenario are treatable. However, in Belize we don’t have the available tests to determine which disorder this patient has, and therefore we can’t advise any treatment. It quickly became clear that the reason the pediatrician had referred this patient to our clinic was so that we would deliver the news that there was nothing we could offer the patient, not even a diagnosis. If we were in the States, the patient would have a battery of tests and most likely we could find out what he has, and whether it’s treatable. Here, the parents will have to live with not knowing what is wrong with their child, and not being able to do anything about it.

In good news, this morning we teleconferenced in to Grand Rounds at Rochester General Hospital. Teleconferencing in to Grand Rounds gives doctors here the opportunity to attend lectures by leading experts in Medicine, something they would not otherwise have access to. After stalling many times in previous weeks trying to get this program started, today was a big success, with 11 doctors and nurses attending! This was a much higher turnout than I had expected, and the doctors I surveyed thought the lecture was very interesting and useful.

Photos: Left: Rasta man, Belize City

Right: Bare-throated tiger heron, running to hide behind a pile of dirt.

2010-02-02T11:12:00.000-08:00

Photo: Nurse sharks in Hol Chan Marine Reserve, Belize

Last week was my birthday, and to celebrate, I swam with sharks. I went to the island of Caye Caulker on Saturday, and from there, went scuba diving and snorkeling. Among hundreds of fish, I saw 4 types of stingrays, and the sharks in the photo. Belize has the second largest barrier reef in the world, and the coral is truly beautiful.

I’ve been emailing with the CEO of the Ministry of Health of Belize, to try to move telemed forward here from the political side of things. I was surprised and pleased to discover that he’s very supportive of the project, and wants to meet with me to discuss how we can overcome some of the barriers I’ve been facing in integrating it into the healthcare system here.

2010-01-21T08:11:00.000-08:00

It’s orange season in Belize. Oranges are one of the major Belizean exports, along with bananas, shrimp, and sugarcane. The great majority of the oranges are not eaten, but are made into juice for exportation. One of my patients makes his living making fresh-squeezed orange juice with his 2 kids, and selling it to stores and to individual people. Yesterday, he brought Dr. Pott and me each a gallon jug of it. Delicious!

In addition to business as usual this week, I’ve been helping out with a large group of volunteer health care workers who are here from the U.S. Sixty-four doctors, nurses, and other health care workers are seeing patients, doing surgeries, etc. for the week. This gives me the opportunity to see other types of specialized surgeries that I would otherwise not see, e.g. urologic surgeries and ENT surgeries.

Photo: One of the many orange trucks filled with ripe oranges.

2010-01-17T10:08:00.000-08:00

Like much of the rest of the world, Belize has been unusually cold (temps in the low 60s!) for the last several weeks. We did have 2 days of “normal” weather (sunny, 85 degrees) over the weekend, so on Saturday I took a boat out to a small island, Tobacco Caye, to enjoy the sunshine. In general, Belize is laid back, but Tobacco Caye is even more laid back. I snorkeled on the coral reef and hammocked, then returned at the end of the day.

Photos:

Top: Tobacco Caye, Belize

Middle: Pelican, resting

Bottom: View from my hammock

2010-01-15T10:51:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Dr. Pott and I performed yet another leg amputation, along with a skin graft and 2 hernia repairs. I also paid a home visit to an elderly gentleman in Hopkins. In the past this man has complained to me about weakness on one side of his body that I think is due to vascular disease from his 60+ years of heavy smoking. Up until now, he’s refused to go to the hospital, but even if he had, there’s not much treatment we can offer an 83-year-old with this problem, other than quitting smoking (which he declined to do). On this visit, he showed me a mass on his breast, and he finally agreed to let me take him to the hospital next week to see Dr. Pott, so that we can remove it. I'm hoping it is not malignant.

The elderly woman that the man lives with saw me and exclaimed, “Oh, she’s gaining weight!” with a congratulatory tone. (Not exactly what I wanted to hear...) Here, larger women are considered more attractive.

Photo: While in Guatemala, I visited an ancient Mayan ritual site. Here, a shaman is making offerings (e.g. coca-cola) to the gods.

2010-01-08T12:58:00.000-08:00

Photos: Carrying heavy loads, Guatemala.

Dr. Pott is back at work, which means I am back in clinic and the OR with him. My work with him doesn’t have anything to do with my telemed project, but I do it simply because I love surgery, and I learn a lot from Dr. Pott. Now that I understand some Spanish, I’m able to assist the Cuban surgeon, Dr. Cruz, as well. Yesterday I assisted Dr. Cruz in amputating a man’s leg.

If it weren’t for the Cuban doctors, our hospital would be extremely anemically staffed. The majority of the hospital doctors are Cuban, as are the operating room staff. The resulting language barrier can make working in the OR a little extra challenging and frustrating. For example, when Dr. Pott, who speaks English, asks the Spanish-speaking scrub nurse for an instrument, he often gets the wrong one, or sometimes just a blank stare. Luckily his Spanish is proficient so he can ask a second time in Spanish.

Speaking of Cuban doctors, Cuba provides doctors for many third-world countries who are short on doctors. As incentive for Cuban doctors to provide service in countries like Belize, the Cuban government offers $50/month to doctors who choose to do so. Although the term of service is 2 years, the $50/month payment is a pension they get for the rest of their lives, and is in addition to their base salary of $35/month. Yes, $35/month is the salary of a Cuban doctor. Belize gets many doctors from Cuba, not only because Belize doesn’t have many of its own doctors, but because from the point of view of the Belizean government, Cuban doctors are cheap labor. Belize provides the Cuban doctors with a stipend of $250 per month, while a Belizean doctor gets paid $3000 per month. Thus Belize saves a lot of money by hiring Cuban doctors. It pains me to imagine how the Cuban doctors must feel, getting paid 1/12 the salary of their Belizean colleagues.

2009-12-29T11:26:00.001-08:00

Photos (taken while kayaking):

Yellow-crowned Night Heron (Nictannasa violacea)(left)

American White Pelican (Pelicanus erythrorhynchos) (right)

Today I had a telemed meeting with InterVol team members in Rochester, to discuss upcoming telemed activities for the new year. Among the things we've got on the agenda, we're planning to teleconference in to Grand Rounds at Rochester General Hospital, so that doctors in Belize can attend these informative sessions. We're also working on more teaching sessions by Rochester faculty, as well as continuing Bob Kane's work in setting up a hospice program here in Belize in conjunction with Rochester and Dangriga high schools.

2009-12-23T10:02:00.000-08:00

Today, a staff meeting was scheduled for noon, but after several people showed up late and some not at all, the Chief of Staff rescheduled for 7am tomorrow morning, much to everyone's dismay. Most of those present were Cuban and the whole conversation took place in Spanish, and though much of what was said was fast and barely understandable to me, I did catch the "siete en la manana, manana" part. Because the Chief of Staff is frustrated about the lack of respect she gets from the doctors, she put in her letter of resignation weeks ago. However, the Ministry of Health is delaying the processing of it, because no one is willing to take her place.

On a positive note, this morning Dr. Lewis and I teleconferenced with Dr. Bernstein at Rochester General Hospital, for a consultation on a pediatric patient with post-infectious glomerulonephritis.

Sometimes in the mornings, the sea is calm and looks like glass. This was one of those mornings, so I went out at 6am on my housemate's kayak. I paddled alongside the beach, which eventually becomes a mangrove forest close to the mouth of the Sittee River, where the wildlife is very rich. The fish were jumping, and I saw parrots, pelicans, herons, and many other birds that I haven't had a chance to identify yet. Next time I'll bring my camera!

2009-12-21T12:18:00.000-08:00

I'm back in Belize after my Spanish immersion in Guatemala. I now understand most of what I hear and am able to converse in Spanish. I've had a few Spanish conversations today at the hospital, so I will be able to use my new skill.

The hospital is very quiet. There are 3 Cuban doctors and 2 Belizean doctors working at the hospital these days, not including the anaesthesiologists. I'm told that patients here tend to avoid the hospital during holidays, but that we can count on January being very busy, e.g. with diabetic patients trying to get their sugar under control again.

2009-12-01T12:09:00.000-08:00

Many doctors in Belize are taking vacation in the upcoming weeks, and because I need these doctors’ participation for my work, I have decided to use these weeks to learn as much Spanish as I can in a language school in Antigua, Guatemala. Being able to communicate with Spanish-speaking patients and doctors will be a great asset in Belize, as well as in the U.S. Although English is the official language in Belize, many Belizeans who live close to the borders of Guatemala and Honduras do not speak English. Also, most of the Cuban doctors who practice in Belize speak very little English.

So far, I've learned a lot of Spanish in several days, and Antigua is truly a delightful and charming town. The streets are all very similar, in Spanish colonial style and cobblestone streets (see photo, above).

Over the weekend I hiked up a nearby active volcano, Volcan de Pacaya (see photo, below). A challenging hike up, it satisfied my life-long desire to see flowing molten lava!

2009-11-25T12:39:00.000-08:00

Photo: One of the abandoned vehicles in Hopkins. My housemate is on a local committee for Hopkins beautification and from what he tells me, this van won't be serving as a flower pot much longer.

This week, a man named Bob Kane is in Belize from Rochester. He had the brilliant idea to teach hospice care (end-of-life care) to high school students here and in Rochester. He is working with a local high school in Dangriga to develop the program, and uses telemed to hold teaching sessions with the Belizean students. The students will be providing palliative care (comfort care) to fellow Belizeans who may not have access to care at the end of their lives. Rochester high school students are participating as well, and will be coming here in April to work alongside the Belizean students.

2009-11-20T13:00:00.000-08:00

Garifuna Settlement Day was a little anti-climactic. The musician who everyone was excited to see did not come, apparently because the chairman of Hopkins didn't finalize the plans or pay him. People who had bought advanced tickets for $25 were simply out of luck. That's a very typical scenario here in Belize.

My new hobby has become to take photos of all the fascinating things I see here. The biodiversity here is astounding, and today I saw this bare-throated tiger heron near my house (see photo). At first he was sitting high up in a tree, crouching down with his neck folded up, and I thought it was one of the common grackels. But, when he flew down and stretched out his neck he looked completely different.

Photo: Bare-throated tiger heron (Tigrisoma mexicanum)

2009-11-16T10:51:00.000-08:00

This Thursday, November 19th, is a major holiday in Belize. It’s Garifuna Settlement Day, commemorating the Garifuna arrival in Belize. Garifuna is one of the cultures of Belize, said to originate in the 1600’s when 2 Spanish ships carrying Nigerian slaves shipwrecked on the island of St. Vincent, in the eastern Caribbean. The Africans intermarried with the Caribbeans who were living on the island, and hence the evolution of the Garifuna people. Years later, the Garifuna settled in Honduras and then Belize after trying to escape the British. The party here has already started, and in Hopkins there is drumming every night this week in celebration. The main event in Hopkins begins the night before the 19th. A well-known musician from Honduras will be performing a concert in Hopkins on Wednesday night, and this will be followed by an entire night of partying. At 6am there will be a re-enactment of the Garifuna arrival by boat on Belize shores. As someone who values sleep, I’m not sure how much of this celebration I will partake in, but I’m looking forward to it nevertheless.

Photo: Red-lored Parrot (Amazona autumnalis), eating berries near my house.

2009-11-13T11:12:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite activities here is swimming at sunset. Last night, the sea was fairly calm, no waves crashing. I was standing in about 4-5 feet of water, when suddenly I heard a splash behind me. I looked, but saw nothing. I kept watching, and after a few minutes I saw a large curved mass arcing through the surface of the water. It was clearly the back of some creature, but it was moving too slowly to be a dolphin. Then I realized, I was swimming with a manatee! I had seen one from shore several weeks ago, and it is well-known that they swim here. Hoping to see it again, I swam closer, but apparently it had decided to return to its solitude.

Today, I am attending an all-day educational workshop at the hospital on HIV and tuberculosis. I look forward to finding out how these subjects are addressed here in Belize.

2009-11-12T13:26:00.000-08:00

The doctors at Western Regional Hospital, located in Belmopan, the capital of Belize, have been on strike for the past 2 weeks. The reason is that they are frustrated with their lack of functioning equipment, which the government of Belize refuses to replace. At Southern Regional Hospital, where I am, the same equipment problems exist. For example, the one and only x-ray machine here has been broken for the past 6 weeks. A hospital with no x-ray machine hardly seems like a hospital. Not infrequently, an anesthesia machine will suddenly stop working in the middle of a surgery at which point the anesthesiologist will fiddle with it and with some luck, will get it working again. The equipment is so old and obsolete, that when parts break, replacement parts are no longer available because they simply are not being manufactured anymore. For instance, a while back, the tubing on the anesthesia machines cracked, and new tubing was not available. Somebody creatively replaced the broken tube with a nasogastric tube (a tube used to pass through a patient’s nose into his/her stomach for feeding or suction), and this has kept the anesthesia machines functioning for the time being.

One of the projects we (InterVol) are doing here is to assist in repairing broken equipment. Yesterday we had a teleconference meeting with Doran Mix, the technologically-gifted medical student I have referred to in past posts, and Ream Kidane, a biomedical engineer at RGH who has generously offered to come to Belize in March to help fix equipment. Our efforts will likely help, but ideally what needs to happen is that the Belizean government needs to step up and provide medical necessities for its people.

Photo: Ctenosaur (Ctenosaura similis), commonly known as a “Wish Willy”, living near my house, about 2 feet in length.

2009-11-09T12:16:00.000-08:00

Last week Dr. Pott and I did an incisional hernia repair on a morbidly obese woman. Along with the repair, we did a panniculectomy, i.e. we removed a large undulating flap of flesh that was hanging down her belly and contributing to her hernia problem. We ended up taking 9 lbs off. My main job was to pull flesh in whatever direction Dr. Pott needed, and I got quite a workout during the course of the surgery, which took about 4 1/2 hours. I hadn’t expected to see much cosmetic surgery in Belize, but the plastic surgery rotation I did before I left Rochester sure came in handy.

Photo: man on porch in San Ignacio, Belize (just thought it looked interesting)...

2009-11-06T09:32:00.000-08:00

Today in clinic, I delivered some bad news to a patient. I told him and his wife that he had liver cancer. Three weeks ago, he came to clinic after being referred for gallstones. When I examined him then, his liver felt really rubbery and weird, to use technical terms, and when I showed Dr. Pott, he thought it worthy of an MRI. The guy had been a heavy drinker, and also had signs of chronic illness - temporal wasting, weight loss, etc.

Today, the patient came back with the results of the MRI, which confirmed hepatocellular carcinoma. After Dr. Pott and I had a hushed discussion while examining the MRI, Dr. Pott left the room briefly. I was left with the patient and his wife, and I asked them if they had been told the results of the MRI. They hadn’t. To me, it seemed obvious that the patient needed to be told that he had cancer, so I told the patient and his wife, as compassionately as I could, that he had cancer of the liver. They looked at me, stunned and confused. As a medical student, I probably overstepped my role, to tell them this without the attending doctor in the room. However, I felt that the information should be relayed to the patient and assumed Dr. Pott was about to do just that.

Dr. Pott came back in the room, but didn’t know I had told them the news. He asked the patient to leave the room so he could talk to the wife. After the patient left the room, Dr. Pott told the wife that the patient had liver cancer, for which there was no treatment in Belize, and that he had 6-12 months to live. The woman was clearly holding back tears. Dr. Pott, not knowing that I had already broken the news to the patient, asked the wife how much information she would like him to tell the patient. She replied that she would like him to say he had liver cancer, and that’s all. The patient was called back in the room, and Dr. Pott told him he had liver cancer.

In the U.S., the way this scenario played out would have been a violation of the patient’s right to privacy. Dr. Pott may have had a reason for telling the wife and not the patient the full story, e.g. perhaps Dr. Pott knew the patient well enough to know that the patient wouldn’t want to hear he had cancer and would rather have his wife make all medical decisions. I think this is unlikely. In this culture, it is likely that the way Dr. Pott handled the situation is the norm. In retrospect, before I broke the news, I should have asked the patient how much he wanted to know about his illness. Nonetheless, it was a moving experience, and I will never forget it.

Photo: Man fishing in Hopkins, Belize

2009-10-23T07:04:00.000-07:00

I am taking a trip back to Rochester for 4 days. I’m looking forward to cool weather, as the heat index in Belize for September and the first few weeks of October was between 100-110F daily. I’m also excited to have a break from the bugs. In my apartment, no matter how much I scrub the place, there are bugs on me constantly. If I make a sandwich and leave it, or a utensil, on the counter unattended, there will be ants on it within minutes. Ants are in the bed, and on me if I’m in bed! Each morning I wake up with new mosquito bites though I apply DEET bugspray each night.

Admittedly, I’ve been getting frustrated with these physical discomforts, as well as feeling helpless in the face of the poverty that surrounds me. As an example, the family across the road from me, when I was living next to Judy, was selling the daughters for sex in order to put food on the table, (which of course resulted in more babies to feed). In the house I moved to on the north side of Hopkins, another neighbor just started a job cleaning at one of the Hopkins resorts, for what she considers a good wage of about $30Bz/day ($15 US dollars/day) to support herself and her daughter.

Since hotel and flight prices are currently cheap in Cancun, I’m spending a couple days here in Cancun, en route to Rochester. What a way to jolt me out of my third world existence! Cancun is the antithesis to Hopkins. Despite all of the complaints I’ve just detailed above, I’d choose Hopkins over Cancun any day. The people I’ve met in Hopkins are the most open-hearted and generous people I’ve ever come across. Most are down-to-earth, they look me in the eye when they talk to me, and they are genuine in what they say, even if it might offend me. Here in Cancun, humanism has been sacrificed for the sake of commercialism. Yesterday, I was looking at some silver earrings in a market, and when I told the shop-owner that I was going to think about it and maybe come back later, he followed me out of the store and yelled after me, “You’re a liar, you’re all liars!” Then I made the mistake of getting suckered into attending a time-share sales pitch, which was a colossal waste of time and energy. So today, I plan to go to the beach and try to forget about the inequities in the world. I’m already looking forward to returning to Hopkins!

2009-10-16T14:40:00.000-07:00

Today, the village (Hopkins) ran out of water. Again. This happens all the time (about once every 1-2 weeks), and the village sometimes goes 4 days with no running water. The water I drink, I buy in 5-gallon jugs. I definitely have a renewed appreciation for clean water since I moved here.

This weekend, I've been invited to a birthday party tonight, and an anniversary party tomorrow night. I'm hoping we'll have water soon, so I can shower first!

Photos: Roadside Hawk (Buteo magnirostris); Great Egret (Casmerodius albus).

2009-10-15T11:04:00.000-07:00

Our most recent telemedicine consult has an interesting twist. The patient is a Mayan man who has been having abdominal pain for a long time. He was treated for a bacteria as well as a parasite but has not gotten better. Because he's seen several doctors and they've been unable to help him, the people in his small village think he has a curse on him by a witch-doctor. There are two main families in his village, and the idea that he has a curse on him has repercussions for his entire family, as it is thought that the curse was placed because the family did something wrong. Small villages being what they are, the whole family is feeling shunned. Hopefully, one of the InterVol doctors will diagnose the real problem and we can spare the family this turmoil.

Today, I assisted Dr. Pott with another hernia repair, and Dr. Pott assisted me with the surgical removal of a wart from a woman's leg. I've also been getting practice putting casts on arms, and removing them. We have several kids per week with wrist/elbow/arm fractures.

2009-10-11T10:47:00.000-07:00

Friday, the high school debate on the topic “Only those with serious mental illness should have access to health care professionals” went well. The students did a great job presenting their arguments. The team arguing the negative side of the argument won, and the photo (center) shows how excited the students of the winning team were.

Yesterday, I found a new passion, when I SCUBA dove for the first time. A friend in Hopkins, Luckie Nunez, is a SCUBA instructor, and began teaching me and two other of his friends to dive yesterday. After learning some skills in shallow water, we dove 20-25 feet deep in the coral reef off of South Water Caye. It was incredible! The colors and diversity were extraordinary, and the whole experience was otherworldly.

Photos: One of the students presenting her argument in the debate (top); students of the winning team after hearing that they won (center); those of us from Southern Regional Hospital who organized the event: Nurse Funky, Tina Gaud, Matron Valentine, Estella Humphries, Nurse Sinclair (bottom).

2009-10-08T21:15:00.000-07:00

Last evening, shortly after I returned home from the hospital, one of my neighbors came running over to my house in a panic. Her nephew had apparently fallen while trying to pull a guava down from a tree, and badly cut his wrist on a piece of glass. When I looked at the boy, who was 12 years old, he had a deep cut and obviously needed to get to the hospital. With a tourniquet wrapped around his arm, I drove them to the hospital where things were quiet, and he was able to get cleaned up and sutured immediately, and he seems to be doing fine.

Today, I worked with Dr. Pott in the OR. We amputated a diabetic woman's finger, which had turned black and was oozing pus from a month-long infection -- not a very different scenario from many diabetic patients I've seen in the States. We had 2 other minor surgeries, one of which was a lymph node biopsy, and Dr. Pott let me do the incision, most of the dissecting, and the suturing. Exciting!

This afternoon Dr. Medieros, a breast surgeon at Rochester General Hospital, gave a teaching session on breast cancer to medical staff, via teleconferencing. The group was small, but people were grateful and found the session valuable.

2009-10-07T13:44:00.000-07:00

Today, I gave a lecture on mood disorders (depression and bipolar disorder) to hospital staff. The lecture was scheduled for 1:00 PM, and at 1:10 when no one had shown up, I thought there must not have been any interest, and I almost left. However, the internet connection in the conference room is good (thanks to InterVol and Doran Mix, the med student here over the summer), so I decided to stay and do some work. Around 1:25, the nurse practitioner who had asked me to give the lecture came, and 10 minutes later, the room was packed with 20 people. I should have known -- the lecture was 1:00 PM *Belize time*. So, I gave my teaching session and it went great! The group had such a vivacious sense of humor that by the end, when people were asking questions, everybody was laughing big laughs, several people slapping their thighs. One staff member, as he left, said, “At first the people didn’t want to come, and now they don’t want to leave.”

A few nights ago, I was driving home from yoga around 6 PM. It had just gotten dark, but there was a full moon. I saw something I hadn’t seen before -- hundreds of crabs, crossing the road. Each one was about the size of my palm or slightly larger, and their eyes, sitting atop their eye-stalks, gleamed eerily in the light of the moon. A crustacean blanket across the road, it was impossible to avoid the crunch of a few unlucky ones under my tires. The road was still partially flooded, and suddenly I saw a slithering across the road -- a crocodile! It was probably about 5 feet long, and about 5 feet away from me. I’m glad I wasn’t on my bike that night.

2009-10-06T07:06:00.000-07:00

This week is International Mental Health Week. I have been working with the psychiatric nurse practitioners at the hospital to organize activities for the week. Yesterday we had an open house at the hospital, giving out information on general health issues and psychiatric health issues, and we tested blood sugar and blood pressure on people. I must have pricked about 100 fingers. Tomorrow, I will be giving a lecture on mood disorders to the hospital staff. Friday, we are having a debate between two local high school debate teams, on the topic, "Only those with serious mental illness should have care by mental health professionals." I will be the time-keeper and score-keeper. Should be interesting!

2009-10-02T07:26:00.001-07:00

The ObGyn team that was here over the week hit the ground running. The team included 3 nurses (Nancy, Vicky, Diana) and one doctor (Dr. Vill) and one administrator (Bernadette). There is an overwhelming need for ObGyn care here and the team had their hands full. Vicki and Diana traveled out to some of the rural villages and provided PAP smears for women there. Nancy worked in Labor and Delivery, and Dr. Vill used a portable ultrasound machine to evaluate prenatal patients and anything else that came her way. Bernadette provided valuable organization and took care of the inevitable paperwork that accompanies patient care.

A few examples of what the team saw: a patient came to Dr. Vill because she had fibroids and wanted an ultrasound. Dr. Vill saw the fibroids, but also found a fetal heart beating at 150 beats per minute! The woman was 17 weeks pregnant and had no idea. Another woman who was 34 weeks pregnant came in to the emergency room with eclampsia, a potentially fatal condition that includes high blood pressure and seizures. Thanks to Dr. Vill’s evaluation, the woman received an immediate c-section which most likely saved her life. In the labor and delivery room, a woman was bleeding profusely after she gave birth, and no one took notice. Luckily Nancy and Dr. Vill were there to diagnose a post-partum bleed and sewed the patient up.

Photos: Dr. Vill doing an ultrasound (top); Patients in line at Southern Regional Hospital, Dangriga -- Bernadette is sitting at the desk organizing the chaos (center); Patients waiting to be seen at the health clinic in Independence (bottom).

--Tina

2009-09-28T19:49:00.000-07:00

On Saturday my friend Dianne and I went to a Belizean wedding in San Ignacio (see photo, right). We were invited there by the groom’s brother. I continue to be amazed at the friendliness and open-heartedness of the Belizean people. Even though we didn’t know the bride nor the groom, the family welcomed us with open arms. As the first and last person on the dance-floor, I don’t remember the last time I had so much fun. There were also performances by belly dancers and a woman who danced with fire, twirling flaming torches around while she danced.

This week, I’m working with a team of obstetrics/gynecology specialists from Rochester, who are volunteering their services here for the week. A few poignant, astonishing details about giving birth in Belize: women must bring their own toilet paper to the hospital, to carry with them when they go to the bathroom. They also bring their own towels and give birth in the clothes in which they arrive (i.e. they are not provided hospital gowns). The sheets are not changed in between patients. Actually, there are no sheets, just a mattress. (If you’ve ever seen a childbirth, that detail is truly disturbing.) Today, for the patients who needed oxytocin (a powerful medication that increases the force and frequency of contractions), it was not measured, just eyeballed by the one and only gynecologist at the hospital, a Cuban doctor with questionable desire and/or ability to communicate with his patients or care about their well-being. There are many more such tidbits, some that are even more remarkable. The story about why Cuban doctors are here, I will save for another day.

2009-09-25T09:41:00.000-07:00

It’s rainy season here. A couple of days ago, when we got a break in the rain I decided to ride my bike to a neighboring village to go to a yoga class there. The road there was partially flooded, and as I rode through the water, my shoes and feet got wet. I didn’t think anything of it, especially since I was preoccupied by having to put the chain back on my bike 5 or 6 times, as it kept slipping off! The next day, I was seeing patients in the clinic. One man had an ankle problem, and as we were examining his bare feet, I realized there was a stench in the air of dirty feet. But after the patient left, the stench remained. A little later, it dawned on me that it was MY feet that stank! I was horrified when I realized that I was wearing the same shoes that had been drenched in the bacteria-laden floodwater, and this must have been why Dr. Pott had kept glancing at my feet and scrunching up his nose. Not only was I humbled, I learned two valuable lessons: keep your shoes clean, and don’t assume it’s the patient who stinks!

I ate freshly-caught barracuda for dinner last night. My yoga teacher and good friend, Dorman, had been out fishing and gave me three different types of fish he had caught, and I fried one up last night. It was some of the most delicious fish I’ve ever tasted!

2009-09-24T14:14:00.000-07:00

Today I was able to complete a telemedicine consultation between a patient in Placencia (southern part of Belize) and a neurosurgeon at Strong Hospital, Dr. Vates. The patient wanted the consultation because he had been told he needed surgery and wanted a second opinion. We were able to transport electronic files of the patient’s MRI to Dr. Vates, who kindly donated his time. It was a good thing, because not only did Dr. Vates recommend surgery, he concluded that the patient is at high risk for paralyzation or death with any minor trauma and thus the patient needs surgery ASAP. The patient is now scheduled for surgery on Monday.

Yesterday evening, I went swimming after a day at the hospital. I was enjoying the sunset, when, BAM! I felt the sting of a jellyfish on my hip. Ouch! As I swam back to shore, I considered the possibilities of how to relieve the sting. I’ve been told of 3: vinegar, windex, or urine. Unfortunately, I didn’t recall having any vinegar or windex... I know what you’re thinking, and believe me, I seriously considered it. Instead, I melted an ice cube on the burning area of my skin, and brainstormed other possible strong chemicals that might alleviate the burn. Marie Sharp's habanero sauce, perhaps? I started making dinner, and suddenly remembered, I did have some balsamic vinegar! I put some on the skin, and the burning and swelling disappeared. Now all that are left are some red lines on my leg that look like chicken scratches.

--Tina

2009-09-23T13:52:00.000-07:00

Carnival was last weekend in Belize City! A friend and I hitchhiked and took the bus up to Belize City. Hitchhiking is very common here, and we figured since there were two of us, we'd try. There were many other people hitchhiking as well so we got to meet some interesting people, one of whom was a hitchhiker who said he had fathered many children with different women, and said his name was "Boom-Boom." My friend and I were able to hitch rides for parts of the trip in both directions, but in the end took the bus most of the way, especially since it started raining on us on the way back! The parade was fun -- great costumes and dancing. One of the floats in the parade was for "One Barrel," a popular brand of Belizean rum. In the parades I remember from my American childhood, candy was hrown out to the crowd, but in this one, cups of rum-and-coke were handed out to the crowd!

2009-09-18T10:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was assisting in a hernia repair surgery, when the power went out. This happened twice while the patient was on the operating table. For some reason the backup generators were not working, so the OR was completely dark. For a second I almost panicked for the sake of the patient whose belly was wide open, but then a tiny light emerged from the head of the operating table. The anaesthesiologist was providing a makeshift flashlight using his intubation instrument, which has a light that shines down a patient’s throat when inserting a tube. Genious. But not enough light to finish the surgery. Luckily the lights came back on momentarily, and we completed the surgery. Dr. Pott, the general surgeon, wisely cancelled the next case, which was a cholecystectomy (gall bladder removal). However, the ObGyn doctor needed to do a c-section. As we were scrubbing in, the lights went out again. But this time, they didn’t come back on. Luckily, no incision had been made! Again the anaesthesiologist shed a tiny beam of light so we could at least see the door. I think they had to send the patient by ambulance to the hospital in Belmopan.

--Tina

2009-09-03T12:39:00.000-07:00

Scenes from the street in Belize City: a fisherman in his boat at the fish market (left); a fruit stand (right).

Last week, I went with a group of women to Belize City, because one of the women needed a mammogram. For diagnostic tests more complex than an x-ray, such as MRIs, CT scans, or mammograms, patients have to go to a private hospital in Belize City and pay out-of-pocket.

While in Belize City, I went to the public hospital there to see an 18-year-old girl who had been in a motorcycle accident and needed a bone graft, who might benefit from a telemed consult. I was stunned to see that on the entire surgical ward, there was one single container of soap.

In Belize City, we took the opportunity to do

some shopping for things we don't have in the southern part of Belize. I bought luxuries such as chocolate and cheese. And, I bought a used car, for Intervol's use (and my use, while I'm here). Now I can drive to the hospital with AC, without showing up like a drowned rat (see previous post for details)!

Interestingly, there is a significant Mennonite community in Belize. In the photo at right, 2 Mennonite men hauling batteries, of all things.

--Tina

2009-08-24T21:31:00.000-07:00

To get from where I live in Hopkins to the hospital in Dangriga, I take a bus, which can get crowded (right)! Most people here handle the heat and humidity with much more grace than I, as my skin is still used to the frigid Rochester air. After the 20-mile bus-ride, there was not a dry spot on my scrubs, generating many oohs and ahhs from the other passengers. I tend to stand out in the crowd here as it is, and stepping off the bus looking like I just stepped out of the shower makes me a yet more comical sight to behold.

A sad event occurred last week. For many years in Hopkins, it was customary to dump one’s trash in the ocean. Some of the village inhabitants still do this, and dirty diapers occasionally wash up on the beach. Didi, a 4-month-old Rottweiler puppy, the youngest of Judy’s family’s 3 dogs, didn’t know better than to pull up dirty diapers that washed up on the beach. Likely, this is how she got sick. Last week she was not her usual perky self and wouldn’t even get up to say hello. We started an IV drip on her and treated her with fluids and metronidazole for presumed parasitic infection. However, despite our best efforts, Didi became septic and passed away Thursday night.

Below, some of the kids in Hopkins during the camp last week.

2009-08-19T10:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had a very successful telemed consult for a 4-month-old boy with some neurological deficits. Doran Mix, a 2nd-year med student at the University of Rochester, recruited two pediatric neurologists from the U of R, who generously did the consultation and gave recommendations for next steps in the care of this baby. The pediatrician here, Dr. Lewis, and the baby's mom seemed very pleased.

I must admit the success of this consultation balanced out some frustrations of earlier in the week, when 4 different meetings fell through due to people not showing up. I'm told this is the norm here. On the up-side, it's an opportunity to practice patience.

Judy and I just got done suturing up a woman's leg after a bad bicycle fall. For the rest of the day, we will be helping a volunteer group from Canada run a children's camp here in Hopkins.

And, as a side note, I'm including a picture of the local cuisine: rice and beans with stewed chicken and coleslaw, with Marie Sharp's habanero sauce. Delicious!

--Tina

2009-08-16T12:23:00.000-07:00

Tina Gaud here -

Today marks 2 weeks here in Belize for me, and it's been a busy 2 weeks! Along with settling in to my new home in the small village of Hopkins, I've been seeing patients with Nurse Judy Krieg. A native Belizean, she was a critical care nurse in the US for about 20 years before moving back to Belize. Now she runs a health clinic out of her garage. I live next door to her in a rented apartment, and help out in the clinic. There are no doctors in Hopkins, so Judy is the only medical care outside of Dangriga, which is 20 miles away. Among the patients we've seen, one had been stung by a stingray, another had been burned on his face and hand when an oven he was repairing exploded in his face, and another was a local teenager with psychiatric issues.

Last week a group of cardiologists from Miami Beach were giving a free cardiology clinic in Dangriga. We took one of our patients, a 14-year-old boy with heart disease, into Dangriga to get an echocardiogram. We were happy to find out that his heart is holding its own despite having had no medical treatment.

My main purpose here, however, is to see how telemedicine can improve access to healthcare for people living here. I have been meeting the doctors in Dangriga and discussing with them how telemedicine may improve healthcare here, and we are planning educational lectures over telemed as well as consultations with the doctors in Rochester who volunteer with Intervol.

This weekend I've had some time for being a tourist, and yesterday I visited the Mayan ruins at Xunantunich with Judy and her family. Today I had a Spanish lesson with a local elder who is kindly helping me learn Spanish, and then I swam in the Caribbean Sea, which happens to be in my backyard. Tonight I will be having dinner with some friends I've met.

---Tina

View from the front of my house (left), and back yard (below).

Wild black orchid (below)

Xunantunich(below)

2009-08-09T17:40:00.000-07:00

InterVol welcomes Tina Gaud to Belize. Tina is a 4th year medical student at the University of Rochester Medical Center. She has generously elected to take a year from her studies and dedicate it to helping develop InterVol's various programs in Belize. She will also help develop the Telemed program which will be used for patient care, physician and nurse education and much more.

Welcome Tina and thank you. We look forward to your blog entries.

2009-01-27T13:35:00.000-08:00

Today Cheryl had her surgery. As of 3:00 PM she was awake, in her bed comfortably and was able to get the breathing tube out. Getting out the breathing tube is a very important step because this indicates that the patient is awake enough after the anesthesia and also the breathing tube can be very uncomfortable. Tonight Cheryl will be staying in the Cardio Thoracic Intensive Care Unit. They will get her up into a chair tomorrow morning around 5 AM if everything progresses according to plan. It will then be her surgeon’s decision to transfer her up to our step-down floor 4400 tomorrow morning. There she will stay a few days and recover some more. Once on 4400 another person will be able to follow up with her and make comments on here.

2009-01-26T18:31:00.001-08:00

Today some of the staff from the Cardio Thoracic Intensive Care Unit was able to meet Cheryl and start to prepare for tomorrow. Currently Cheryl is on 4400 and is the first surgery in the morning. This means that she will be taken to the operating room around 6:40 AM tomorrow 1/27/09. Her surgery will begin around 7:30 and will last anywhere from 2-3 hours. After her surgery she will come directly to our unit. We explained this to Cheryl and she is aware that she will have a breathing tube in. Cheryl told us that she was able to recognize some of the nurses from pictures that we sent. Also, she stated that she noticed the room she was in from pictures. She said that she wanted to turn around in North Carolina when they ran into some problems as the previous post said; however, she said that she is excited and glad she made it and is ready for surgery. Tomorrow I will make a post to update how she is doing after surgery.

2009-01-26T13:42:00.001-08:00

Cheryl and Leona are here and through day 1 of fixing Cheryl's valve. Their trip to Rochester was a little more exciting than desired as customs took longer than expected and they ended up staying in the night in Charlotte. But due to the generous assistance of a gentleman at the US Airways ticket counter and Cindy's neice Kelly, our two visitors were able to get a good night's rest before flying again on Sunday.

We had a big welcome party meet them at the airport including: Barbara, Kara, Bob, Maureen, Ralph, Cindy, and Leah. After getting them settled into their apartment behind Rochester General Hospital, Cindy and Leah gave brought them over to the hospital to start the paperwork with Dr. Gacioch. They are working on getting acclimated to the biting cold we're currently experiencing. Even with the sun out yesterday, it was maybe 10 degrees. It's a good thing we've received the donations of many layers!

Monday began early with a pick up at 6:45am to begin the registration at the hospital. After some more paperwork and waiting, Cheryl became an official patient with her gown, IV and all. And then today's procedure in the cath lab by Dr. Gacioch was pretty painless according to Cheryl. She just wasn't thrilled with the idea of having to lay flat for 4 hours afterwards to let the incision heal. And finally at 2pm they let her have something to eat! Cheryl's been doing great, she even received a surprise visit from the RGH's President, Mark Clement to wish her well tomorrow. Fortuantely there was nothing else left on the agenda for today and she could finally just rest. And she better get it because tomorrow starts early again!

2009-01-25T18:38:00.000-08:00

Hello my name is Tony and I am one of the nurses in the Cardio Thoracic Intensive Care Unit at Rochester General Hospital. I was asked to make some comments on our unit. We are a twelve bed unit consisting of many nurses, nurse manager; midlevels consisting of nurse practitioners and physician assistants; patient care technicians; respiratory therapists; house keeping; secretaries and our cardio thoracic surgeons. The staff consists of experienced nurses and many have been at our unit for twenty and thirty years. This year again we were listed on the Thomson Reuters list as one of the top 100 heart programs in the country. It has been the eighth time that we have been nominated for this honor. Our hospital has been nominated again this year as a Magnet Designated Hospital. We are one of approximately 120 hospitals or 2% of the hospitals nation wide to demonstrate this excellent level of nursing care. At the moment we are lucky enough to have a new unit being build that will be opening late 2009 early 2010. We are affiliated with the Cleveland Heart Clinic which is one of the top, if not the top heart clinic in the country. After surgery, Cheryl will be coming from the operating room directly to our unit. We are all excited and ready to give the best cardiac care possible.

2009-01-16T08:27:00.001-08:00

Here are Cheryl and her children. In Cheryl's hand in a beautiful scrapbook put together by the CTICU at Rochester General introducing Cheryl to Rochester, the hospital, and all the doctors and nurses she will meet.

2009-01-16T08:12:00.000-08:00

A week from tomorrow (Jan 24th) InterVol is going to have a very special guest visit us. Ms. Cheryl Ritchie will be coming to Rochester, NY from Belize. We first met Cheryl on the VMP (Volunteer Medical Professionals) trip to Belize in March 2008. She walked in to see the cardiologist, Dr. Gerry Gacioch, and looked him straight in the eye and begged him to please help her. In her hand she carried a CD from Belize City verifying that she had a very debilitating condition called mitral stenosis.

At 32-years-old Cheryl is often short of breath which makes it difficult for a young mother to keep up with her 6 children all under the age of 17. Mitral stenosis is a narrowing of the mitral valve which limits the amount of blood flow from her heart into her body. As a child Cheryl had rheumatic fever, an illness easily treated with penicillin and nearly eradicated from the United States since 1950, but a common childhood disease in third world countries. The rheumatic fever, left untreated led to this condition which is only getting worse. As the condition is progressing, she only has a few year left for a woman who is otherwise healthy. In the poor country of Belize her only hope for treatment is to go to Guatemala, but even then she would need a large sum of cash, something difficult to come by.

This is where InterVol and Rochester General come in. Dr. Gacioch made a promise in March to Cheryl that he would find a way to help her. And her dream is coming true in a week. Next Saturday Cheryl, accompanied by her mother, will come to Rochester and have surgery at one of the top heart hospitals in the country. The entire community is behind her trip and helping her get the treatment she needs. The hospital is donating all the surgery, physicians time, and equipment needed. They also have on campus apartments in which Cheryl and her mother will be staying. Students from The Harley School will stock the cupboards in the apartment and prepare meals for them. Local nurses are providing winter clothes for these women who have definitely never experienced this cold we've been having. And the plane tickets have been covered by the Webster Kiwanis Club and the Monroe Country Mites Travel Hockey Team.

So Saturday Cheryl joins us in Rochester. She will only been in the hospital for a weeks time. Since she is a beautifully healthy woman, she will make a quick recovery. After which she will stay in Rochester for 2 additional weeks so she can follow up with the doctors. And then on February 14th, Valentine's Day, Cheryl outfitted with a new lease on life will return to the loves of her life, her children: Glen, Albert, Christy, Marisa, Clarissa, and Sherilee.

We want to thank everyone who has made this miracle for Cheryl possible!

2008-05-15T05:10:00.000-07:00

Belize Service Learning Project 2008.

2007-04-24T11:25:00.000-07:00

SUNY Fredonia FAB chapter celebrates a successful trip to Belize. Read about their experiences from the Observer perspective....

2007-03-18T16:12:00.000-07:00

Heading Home!!!!!

After an amazing week it was time to head home. We left with plenty of time to make it to the airport and through customs, but it wouldn't be an adventure if we did not have some trouble along the way. About 30 min from the airport the left rear tire on one of the vans blew out causing our caravan to come to a halt. Having no shoulder to pull over to- Patrick, Dr. Pennino, Bob and company began changing the tire and cars and trucks sped by at very high speeds. It was quite nerve racking especially because every piece of equipment we tried using was of course not functional. Having watch a lot of A-Team and MacGyver, the guys got the tire changed and the flight was made with some time to spare. Always and adventure.

2007-03-17T16:00:00.000-07:00

St. Patrick's Day Party!!!!!

Our last night here in the jungle was a lot of fun. We had a huge party celebrating our accomplishments this week, the Patron Saint of Ireland, and Bob's 21st birthday (HA!!) We also presented our amazing friends who prepared our meals with gifts of appreciation.

Jimmy one of the local boys giving the thumbs up. He was full of energy and always brought life to our evening festivities.

Patrick posing with the master chefs. They prepared the most amazing food for us all week. Patrick promised to bring them all back to the States so they could cook for him. I think they thought he was serious!

The Pennino girls getting into trouble late at night.

Finally, a birthday cake for Bob who made the trip very memorable. Phyllis arranged for a surprise cake for him and here was his reaction.

2007-03-17T15:53:00.000-07:00

St. Patrick's Day!!!!

This morning the whole team went to the hospital in Belmopan to see patients and deliver and A/V cabinet that Steve and Bob built. Here we see a new pt with a small hemangioma. Nothing to do at this stage expect reassure the parents.

Lan and Dr. O'Connor seeing one our post-op patients from earlier in the week back for a dressing change. She had an excellent results and should have full function of her arm once she heals.

Bob and Steve posing with their creation. This beast was fabricated with an old shelving unit and whatever else they could find in the jungle. It will old a flat-screen T.V. donated by I-Flo and dozens of videos/DVDs collected by Kara and friends back in the States.

Here Dr. Pennino is instructing the nursing staff on how to use all the new A/V equipment. The children that were in the peds unit flocked over to watch the new T.V.

2007-03-16T15:41:00.000-07:00

After our visit at the hospital in Dangriga, we set out on a 35 min boat ride to a group of islands along the coastal reef off Belize. We visited an island called South Water Caye and spend the day relaxing, fishing, snorkeling, etc..

This a view of one of the beach houses you can stay at during your stay on the island. The island was very small, quiet, and private. An excellent place to relax after a week of hard work in the jungle.

Here is Patrick hanging out after fishing for barracuda and bone fish with Dr. O'Connor and his nephew James. They hooked up a few fish, but mostly enjoyed the weather and post-fishing spirits.

2007-03-16T15:27:00.000-07:00

Today we went to Dangriga to Southern Regional Hospital to try and set up the tele-med connection back to the States. This hospital is slightly larger and more modern than the hospital in Belmopan and will most likely be the facility we operate out of next year. We also delivered some toys for the children at the hospital and presented a digital camera to one of our liasons so they can take pictures of potential cases and send them to us in the States. We spent most of the morning here and toured the facility to see what would be needed for next year.

2007-03-15T16:40:00.000-07:00

Surgical Team-

The surgical team went to the hospital this morning to see some patients for follow up. A couple of new patients were seen with complex problems that unfortunately we were unable to help this trip. We will see some patients again on Sat.

Lan and Patrick set out on an adventure later in the morning by venturing into the foothills of the Mayan mountains to the "Mother of all Caves"... Actun Loch Tunich! This involved about a three hour uphill hike on very thin trails frequently having to rock climb. This picture is the Actun Loch Tunich sink hole that sits 300 feet above the basin below. Once they reached the top the adventure really began.

This is the view from the top of the moutain looking into the sink hole. Our guides rigged up a system of rappelling ropes for the decent to the basin below. The first ten feet are adrenaline packed as you work your way over the protruding rocks. The next 200 feet are a free hanging decent above the top of the jungle canopy. The last hundred feet are through the rainforest canopy.

Patrick fully rigged up and ready to go over the edge. Was it mentioned that he is afraid of heights?

A look from above as Patrick starts his decent.

Lan all rigged up and ready to go.

Another view from the decent down.

2007-03-14T22:46:00.000-07:00

Francesca's [brief] glimpse of Belize... beauty + dirt

+ people + children + adults + sick + disease + hunger + POOR + pain smiles + happy(ness) + doctors nurses + love + students + family + young + mosquitos + hot + food + water + pools + tears + giggles + scrapes + cars + dogs + horses + chickens + hens + lights + lizards + stinky(dog) + bottled + water + sunscreen + mothers + fathers + bumpy + roads + bodies + heat + sweat + smile...

+ Jesus + God(?) + Catholicism + Spanish + English + Mayans + Garifunos + foreigns + white + gringo(!) + novio feo + novio bonito + jungle children + banana bank+ jungle dome + why why why + anger +fear + resentment... questions +"hospitals" +"emergency room"... health "care"+ care + kind + saints + toys + movies + SCOUTS + hospice + computers + flowers + trash + dirt + CHILDREN + love...

2007-03-14T22:21:00.000-07:00

No matter where one goes in the world... new ND friends can always be made. Steph, papa, and two Class of 03 Domers standing on one of the incredible structures of Tikal.

2007-03-14T21:16:00.000-07:00

Joey's Day at Octavian Way with Dr. Phyllis:

What a roller coaster ride my friends... Octavian Way is small establishment in San Ignacio that serves men and women over 65. It's the closest thing in the country to a retirement home, although I can't imagine many in Belize plan on retiring. Phyllis and I hitched a ride with the group heading to the Good Shepherd clinic on the other side of the city. It was another long, slow, bumpy and unsatisfying ride led by the infamous Dr. Villereale. Phyllis nagged him the entire ride. When Phyllis and I arrived at Octavian we were greeted by the head nurse who was from Sweden. She oversaw the administering of medications to the residents and directed the daily activities. Phyllis, with me shadowing, was given a small storage room where saw patients in. I was expecting to stay out of the way and watch Phyllis do her thing with the patients, but I quickly realized that I would be getting a real "hands on" lesson in using the stethascope (taking pulses, blood pressures), and looking for "bruies"...

Our first patient only spoke Spanish so I attempted to translate. The language barrier and the fact that the man was def nearly were too much. Phyllis managed to deduce that the man likely had an ulcer based on what he was trying to tell us in Spanish.

The next patient was a women in her 80's who had an amputated leg, and an injured second one. Hearing the woman's story was very difficult. She was bitten by a red ant, and the ensuing infection continued to spread and worsen until the only option for her was amputation of all of her leg. She was a beautiful women but had such a sad and disconnected look in her eyes. Seeing her cry when the nurse pulled a bandage off of her thigh was almost too much for me to watch.

The next patients had similar unfortunate stories.

The next most difficult part of the day included making a house call to visit Tracey a 17 yr old paraplegic. Phyllis was asked to see her by the head nurse. I heard her story on the way:

She broke up with her boyfriend about a year ago. In his anger he stabbed her 5 times in the back and then sliced her throat. After doing such an awful thing he felt bad and took her to a hospital where doctors saved her life. Unfortunately the spinal cord was damaged by one of the puncture wounds, rendering her unable to walk. It wasn't until recently that a second x ray confirmed that the cord had completely been severed. It was surreal sitting in her room with Phyllis and listening to her tell Tracey that she would most likely be in her wheel chair for her entire life. Belize isn't exactly handicap accesable... While we were there Tracey's mother shared with us that her sister was shot last week in the leg walking home from work in Belize City for no apparent reason.

This was all very gut wrenching to hear.

The final stop was at the home of a women who was the victim of a head on car crash in which she broke nearly every bone in her body...pelvis, femur, tibia, fibia, clavicle, and parts of her face and skull. She lost one two family members who were driving the car. She was in the back seat. She was flown to belize and litterally put back together. Unfortunately the steel rods in her legs were not placed correctly and cause her chronic and excruciating pain almost 2 years after the accident. Sue to her immobility and diabetes she has gained a ton of weight and is now suffering from hypertension and high blood pressure. Her only son is still working to pay the medical bills from the incident...

Tough day...

2007-03-14T19:28:00.000-07:00

Today some of the team went to Peten, Guatemala to visit the Mayan Ruins at Tikal. The trip there was amazing and the ruins are absolutely breathtaking.

Here Patrick and James (Tim's nephew from England) are standing atop of one of Tikal's many temples many feet above the ground.

Lan and company are standing atop on of the tallest temples in Tikal. Notice no railings or ropes to break your fall.

John, Emme and Lan stand together at the top of a temple. The background might be familiar as it was the setting for several scenes in a couple of the Star Wars movies.

A collection of temples in the main area of Tikal that was striking.

A map showing the massive layout of the Tikal ruins. It was quite an unbelievable experience that we will never forget.

2007-03-13T21:21:00.000-07:00

The group at Xantunich. BEFORE the climb...

2007-03-13T21:19:00.000-07:00

Joey makes a sacrifice at the Ancient Mayan ruins... except Steph isn't ready to be sacrificed...

2007-03-13T21:15:00.001-07:00

Waiting for dressing change at Good Shepard Clinic in San Ignatio.

Good Shepard Indoor Waiting Room.

Peggy and Nurse Juan working at Cala Creek, San Ignatio.

Isaura Menzies seeing a mom and 2 kids in Cala Creek Clinic.

Peggy Bergin and Nurse Juan on their way to Cala Creek Clinic.

Peggy Bergin crosses the footbridge to Cala Creek Clinic.

2007-03-13T21:15:00.000-07:00

Joe and Steph enjoyed a successful day with the most incredible Sister Margret.

2007-03-13T21:13:00.000-07:00

Papa (Nienaber) enjoying all of the Belizian atmosphere... and his new Belizian friends... but not for too long ;)

2007-03-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

After a hard days work, the doctors need some R & R. Notice the two laps in the middle of the jungle. Nothing like roughing it.

2007-03-13T16:54:00.000-07:00

Surgical Team-

Here is the OR at the hospital in Belmopan. Our team was excellent and facility was very adequate for our needs. Luckily for us this room was air conditioned.

2007-03-13T16:48:00.000-07:00

Surgical Team-

Today was a little slow at the hospital. We saw our patients from yesterday and they looked great. We ran into some new patients some of which presented challenging problems. A lot of these patients would require multiple operations to help there complex problems. Here is a picture from yesterday of Dr. Basile and Dr. Girotto operating.

2007-03-13T16:45:00.000-07:00

This is one of the many huge trees that are in the area of where we are staying. If you look close enough you can see Lan stand under the tree.

2007-03-13T16:41:00.000-07:00

This is the monkey outside the Banana Bank Resort which is where some of team is staying. She is very friendly and likes to sit on your head. Beware she can nip at you if she doesn't like you!

2007-03-13T07:26:00.000-07:00

We're going to call this post: Look what happens when 10 Belizean children mix with four American students...

Before our trip to the hospital, Joey found a turtle! Lucas (the little blonde boy) took it upon himself to throw it though...he said it was "slippery".

Yesterday, we FINALLY found our friends that live near the Jungle Dome. Here they are!

Then, the kids got ahold of our cameras... here are some of the pictures they took while we were trying to find our them... :-)

These are the wonderful women who work at the Jungle Dome. They provide the AMAZING food, giggles, and smiles alllll day every day!

Here is a group picture. We are getting ready to play "Run over run over", which we think is the equivalent to "Red Rover" here in the States... See the little girl in front of Kara? That's Ismelda...and she's litterally the best Run Over player in the world...

Jessica was attempting to teach Francesca the Belizean way to play "Go fish" or "Vaya Pescado". Notice the intensity on both of their faces...

This is Kara and Ismelda playing cards!

2007-03-12T22:30:00.000-07:00

Day Three

Today was a great day. Francesca & Kara had the opportunity to work with Cindy, Ralph, Peter Allen, and a Belizean woman named Bev with their project to start a hospice program here in Belize. We met for about 3 hours in Belmopan and got to discuss everything from the set up and building plans to volunteers and doctors.

Meanwhile, the entire time we all were chatting, Doug was attempting to set up the telemedicine system for Peter and Bev to see. Due to some intense firewalling though, the system could not get through! Good try though Doug!

We even had the chance to see the building site for the future hospice.

2007-03-12T21:18:00.000-07:00

Monday, March 12, 2007

Surgical Team Experience-

Today was a great day. We performed several operations. We first treated a hypertrophic scar that was casued by barbed wired. The gentleman was a former police officer, and obtained this injury while pursuing a criminal. Our next case was continutation from a year ago. We did a cleft lip revision and rhinoplasty on a patient that Dr. Girotto operated on last year. She was precious and her family was amazing. Our last case was a burn scar excision and release. She was a four year old that was burn a year ago from hot oil. We released the scar from her arm and then inset a full thickness skin graft. All the patients were great and we hope that there are more that we can help.

2007-03-12T21:15:00.000-07:00

We went to the hospital today. There were not too many patients, but it is Sunday of a holiday weekend...then again...when is it not a holiday weekend in Belize?... :-)

The "students" got to talk with the patients and even hand out some Beanie Babies. Meanwhile, Mr. Nienaber and Bob (the builder...) examined the future location of the entertainment system they will be building this week!

During down time at the clinic Lan felt compelled to share her recent surgical encounter with the mutant 100 lb scrotum. She still had pictures on her digital camera which she was eager to share with the other women in our team... (The faces tell it all)

Within view of the hospital was the Capital of Belize, the brand new 55 million dollar U.S. embassy.

Since there were few patients to be seen that afternoon (it was a Sunday) many of the group were eager to get back to the Jungle Dome and Banana Bank. Dr. Villereale graciously offered to drive 1 of the rental vans back to the compound and 13 others decided to take him up on the offer. Dr. Villereale must have zigged when he should have zagged, because after 15 minutes we arrived back at the hospital for the second time that day. Spirits remained high and criticism was held to a minimum. With the help of the only Belizian in our team, Izaura, we were able to make it back to the Jungle Dome. Luckily no one was pressed for time... we were passed on the road home by several young asmatic jungle sloths. But hey...caution is something that we appreciate in the teams only Anestesiologist. This was how we finally got back to our rooms:

Once we got back, there was a variety of things to do. Some of the group went horsebackriding through the jungle, others swam, and the rest just kicked back and relaxed.

(For those of you who don't know Francesca...this is kind of a big deal...needless to say, she could not get her horse to move, let alone get near the group to take a picture...)

2007-03-11T20:18:00.000-07:00

Day One...

Well, we made it! Steph, Joey, and Francesca got put on the wait list at the airport. That was a nice thing to find when we got there at 5:30 in the morning. But...After much pleading...and threatening (by Joey) we got our tickets!! And off we went...

The flight to Atlanta was relatively quick. We welcomed the 3 hour layover in the Atlanta airport. Steph hit up the mall in terminal A despite the long walk. (she was doing jumping jacks before the flight) Joey and Francesca decided that they had burned enough calories sleeping on the plane and decided to eat instead.

The flight to Belize however was more exciting as we flew across the Gulf of Mexico and watched the complimentary Dream Girls film... (Beyonce is a babe...she's probably Belizian...who knows...)

After finally getting to Belize, Joey, Steph, and Papa had their first customs experience. We would have a picture to show you, but Joey violated the "no photography" rule in the airport, and therefore was told to delete all pictures...needless to say, it was an eventfuly customs trip.

We were united with the group, finally, after a long day of travels. Three-fifths of the Pennino family was reunited. It was glorious. From the airport, we stopped by Brodie's, the only supermarket chain in Belize. Lucky us, because they had JUST built a new store this year! It is always a bit surreal to be able to buy Cheetos in a Third World Country... however the majority of the groups money went towards beverage expenditures...primarily bottled water.

What Notre Dame students feel the need to buy for a week in Belize:

Francesca & Kara:
1 Cranberry Ginger Ale
1 box of honey teddy grams
8 water bottles (32 oz.)
3 bags of homemade tortilla chips
1 can of salsa
2 boxes of bourbon cookies
3 oxen

Joey:
4 bottles of water 32 oz.
1 bottle of Belizian Yum
1 box of whole wheat Club Crackers
1 box of Keebler E.L. Fudge cookies
2 postcards (1 for the family, 1 for the girlfriend)
10 boxes of bullets
1 wagon tongue

Steph/Mr. Nienaber:
4 bottles of water 32 oz.
10 postcards
1 wagon yolk
3 extra sets of clothing

So after a trip to Brodie's that somehow resembled the Oregon Trail...we made our way to the Jungle Dome, which was an hour away.

These were some of the mountains on the way. Eventually, after a LONG and BUMPY hour (Belize only has one paved road) we made it to the Jungle Dome...Here it is! Our first night consisted of eating, napping, swimming, and having fun. It was a killer night for Joey, our own S. Irwin...the pictures explain it all...

Here are some more pictures from the Jungle Dome...

We call this picture: Big Tree, Little Steph.

2 spider monkeys were captives on the Banana Bank compound of whom several of the nurses apparently have become acquainted with in past visits.

The day came to a close with crickets chirping, doctors laughing, monkeys howling, and subtle warnings from our hosts to keep the noise down...

2007-02-28T12:03:00.000-08:00

The New Vision Quick Spanish Reference for the VMP project.

2006-11-14T07:47:00.000-08:00

SUNY Fredonia FAB group had fun creating for a cause!!!

during their 2nd Annual Puppet Night for Belize!!

They made finger puppets.....

AND Boo Bunnies....

All of which will be sent with volunteer teams in the Spring of 2007.

Thank you to all of the SUNY Fredonia FAB volunteers for your creativity and continual support of InterVol's programs!

2006-09-13T08:04:00.000-07:00

Thank you to all of the faculty that have been part of the steering committee for this new campus wide project!

2006-09-13T08:03:00.001-07:00

everyone had a chance to relax and ask the really important questions....

2006-09-13T08:03:00.000-07:00

After our presentation to the student group we had a small group discussion with the faculty and students that are members of the first traveling team to Belize

2006-09-13T08:02:00.000-07:00

After Dr. Pennino's presentation students were eager to sign up for such an awesome new club on campus!

2006-09-13T08:01:00.000-07:00

Professor and Faculty Advisor Ellie Reddy introduces Dr. Pennino to her group of over 70 college students interested in joining the InterVol FAB group on campus.

2006-09-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

Dr. Ralph Pennino getting ready to give his first presentation at SUNY Fredonia on InterVol

2006-06-16T11:14:00.000-07:00

My New Vision friends were a HUGE help packing up the Genesee Hospital library. Thank you so much for all of your help this year!

2006-06-13T08:16:00.000-07:00

Meet us at the old Genesee Hospital off of

Monroe Ave. & Alexander St. for special sorting parties EVERY
Tuesday from 6-8pm and Saturday 9am-12pm until further notice!!

Join us TONIGHT to help sort supplies & equipment---

all volunteers PLEASE meet at the Security office which is located directly next to the former Emergency Room entrance (Tracy Street Entrance).

2006-06-07T10:51:00.000-07:00

Everyone having so much fun!!!

2006-06-06T08:03:00.000-07:00

Check out our interviews on T.V.!

This is the interview that went nationwide---

Enjoy!

2006-05-30T10:29:00.000-07:00

Check out our students work on the Scouting Website!!

2006-05-30T09:08:00.000-07:00

Pondering the ancient civilization....

2006-05-30T09:07:00.000-07:00

Sean & Matt getting ready to take the "ferry" across the river to the Mayan ruins...

2006-05-30T09:06:00.000-07:00

Mayan ruins taking Sean's breath away!

2006-05-30T09:05:00.000-07:00

Who needs Wegmans?!

2006-05-30T09:00:00.000-07:00

Belizean Cameraman