2021 Annual Medical Brigade Trip to Honduras Report
The trip was our annual medical brigade trip to Honduras. This year, like last year, the four physicians involved did not feel comfortable carrying out our usual medical brigades to four rural, very impoverished, villages given the ongoing situation with COVID. For the second year, the physician group, all Indiana University School of Medicine faculty at Riley, worked with physicians in their respective areas at the tertiary referral hospitals in Tegucigalpa. Drs. John Stevens and Heather Muston, pediatric pulmonologists at Riley, worked with three pediatric pulmonologists at the Thorax hospital, helping them to develop the first ever Cystic Fibrosis Center in Honduras at that facility. Dr. Francisco Parker, the director of Pediatric Rehabilitation and Physical Medicine at Riley, worked with his Honduran counterparts at Hospital Maria, Honduras's only tertiary pediatric hospital, Hospital Escuela, the main tertiary referral hospital in Honduras, and at the Honduran University with the professors in the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation School there. Dr. Scott Coven, a pediatric neuro-oncologist at Riley, worked with physicians at Hospital Maria and Hospital Escuela to start to develop a pediatric neuro-oncology service for the country. Drs. Muston and Coven gave formal lectures at the Thorax Hospital and Hospital Maria.
In lieu of our medical brigades to the rural villages, for the second year, the $5000 in donations made to FHC were used to provide desperately needed medical supplies and provided cervical cancer screening at the four rural villages that we would normally have visited. This was spear-headed by SAN under the guidance of Cato Elvir. Another $1500 in donations made to FHC were used to buy pancreatic supplemental medication for children in the Cystic Fibrosis Clinic at the Thorax Hospital.
The group of four physicians then traveled to San Salvador, El Salvador to work at the country's tertiary pediatric hospital, Hospital Bloom, in the same areas as in Honduras. Many of these clinics at Hospital Bloom travel from Honduras to seek care.
The trip was carried out under the auspices of FHC with financial support as noted above in an effort to provide education of pediatric providers and advance the care of children in Honduras.
These first two photos are of the talks given by first Dr. Scott Covin, a pediatric neuro-oncologist from Riley, on Childhood Brain Tumors and the next is Dr. Heather Muston, who talked at the Thorax Hospital, on chest physiotherapy techniques.
In this pictures, Dr. Francisco Parker, the Medical Director of Pediatric Rehabilitation and Physical Medicine at Riley Hospital, is visiting the Honduras University of Rehabilitation to discuss future teaching of the students and staff there about US methods of rehabilitation of pediatric patients.
He and Dr. Scott Coven, a Riley pediatric neuro-oncologist, meet with officials at Hospital Maria (second colorful building), the only tertiary pediatric hospital in Honduras and at Hospital Escuela to discuss developing a collaborative effort to diagnose and treat children with brain tumors in Honduras.
This is a picture of the Creon that was purchased with the generous donation of FHC supporters and provided the very much needed pancreatic enzyme supplement to the children seen in the Cystic Fibrosis Clinic at the Thorax Hospital. We were able to supply the Cystic Fibrosis clinic with enough Creon, a pancreatic enzyme supplement, for 4 children who, with all donations cut off during COVID, had none of this very basic treatment for this disease.
Cato was able to distribute some $5,000 worth of medications and offer cervical cancer screening to many individuals in four villages: Valle Arriba, Las Crucitas, Ojo de Agua and La Mesa. He said all of the clinics that we gave the medications to, with COVID, were in very short to no supply of most basic medications.
Pictures 1 & 2: Drs. Stevens, Muston, Parker, and Coven met with the Medical Director of the El Salvadorian Ministry of Health to discuss the care of Cystic Fibrosis patients in El Salvador, which include several children from Honduras.
Picture 3: Drs. Stevens and Parker met with several of the young men whose education was supported by various FHC donors over the years. To the left of Dr. Stevens is Dr. Alberto Torres, who with the support of FHC finished medical school in Honduras and with FHC support opened a free-standing clinic in Tegucigalpa that serves the children and employees of SAN. To the right of Dr. Stevens is Dany Diaz, who with the support of FHC attended the Elvel Bilingual School in Tegucigalpa, graduating at the top of his class and then obtained his BA from John Carroll University in Cleveland where he was invited to give the commencement speech at his graduation. He then received a scholarship to obtain his master's degree in public policy and management at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburg and has recently finished his work managing a grant from USAID. To Dany's right is Josue Rios, who was supported by FHC in obtaining an accounting degree from UNAH in Tegucigalpa and now works as an accountant for Global Brigades, the largest student-led movement for global health in the world, which was started by students that participated in an FHC college student medical brigade trip to Hondruas in 2003. Dr. Stevens met Alberto, Dany and Josue on the very first trip by Immaculate Heart to Honduras in January of 2000 when the boys were in just the 5th grade.
Pictures 4 & 5: Drs. Stevens, Muston, Parker, and Coven toured the new international pediatric burn facility at Hospital Maria and (picture 5) meet with physicians and administrators at Hospital Maria to discuss developing a long-term educational relationship between the two tertiary pediatric hospitals.
Pictures 6,7 & 8: Drs. Stevens and Muston met with physicians at the Thorax Hospital, the tertiary referral hospital for cardiac and pulmonary patients in Honduras providing consultation in the development and running of the newly formed, first ever Honduran Cystic Fibrosis Center.
