I received the following email from Anil on Saturday, January 23, 2010 at 03:48 (am). He wrote it at the end of his sixth full day in Haiti. I've made minor spelling and grammar corrections and have tried my best to fill in missing words. I've added hyperlinks where I thought they might help.
Some good friends depart
(Note: Anil is in the very center of this group)
(Note: Anil is in the very center of this group)
The Anatomy Of A Day
Each day brings a new challenge and a completely different job description, and it can sometimes be a blur. If I remembered, I took a moment to scribble down what I was doing. Maybe it would help me make more sense of everything or improve my process.
For the past few days we have been waking up at 0600 and drinking coffee for breakfast. Chris Sloan, an astronaut candidate and [emergency medicine] doctor from UCSD, brought one of those portable hypoxia monitors. My heart rate had gone from a resting heart rate of 50 to 85. Everyone was about the same, with all of us hovering in the 90s. That could only be from a lack of water intake. They say you shouldn't eat protein if you are in a survival situation when you have less than a pint of water per day because it requires water in order to be utilized. I wonder if that is true if your urine output is near zero.
It didn't matter because none of us seemed to have time to eat anyways. Most people managed a Powerbar. That isn't surprising for people who work in the [emergency department] unless you are talking about [Stanford Clinical Associate Professor of Surgery] Ed Klofas.
Around 0700 everyone crams into the bus and makes the 3 minute trip to the hospital. We start at the supply room and make a box of injectable antibiotics like ceftriaxone and ceftaz and grab a few of the more exotic ones if they are visible.
The most concerning thing is wondering who made it through the night, where they might be laying today, and what new challenges the day would bring.
Anil S Menon
Sent from iPhone
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Anil Menon, MD is a clinical instructor at Stanford School of Medicine focused on surgery and emergency medicine. His research interests are Aerospace Medicine, Emergency Medicine, and Wilderness Medicine. He graduated from Stanford Med in 2006, received a degree in mechanical engineering in 2003 and became a full ER doctor in 2009. He has practiced medicin in combat in Afghanistan and will be practicing aerospace medicine next year at NASA. Menon is a flight surgeon assigned to the 173rd Fighter Wing (F-15s) of the Oregon Air National Guard, and he's part of a team sent to Haiti by Stanford.
This entire series is chronicled under the HaitiDrDispatch tag