Winter - Augusta Health
Winter - Augusta Health
Winter - Augusta Health
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A mission of caring<br />
As A primAry cAre physiciAn, WAlter kerschl, md, hAd<br />
AlreAdy committed his life to helping And heAling<br />
others. But during his first international medical mission<br />
to Honduras in 2008, he discovered that his medical skills<br />
and compassionate spirit could have a far greater reach and<br />
impact.<br />
“We were traveling around to multiple villages when<br />
i realized that another medical mission might only return<br />
to that same place in three years,” recalls Dr. Kerschl,<br />
who is also a physician executive at <strong>Augusta</strong> <strong>Health</strong>.<br />
During that mission to Honduras, Dr. Kerschl and a friend,<br />
Joshua Harvey, resolved to create an organization that<br />
could organize regular medical mission trips to help<br />
impoverished people abroad, and the Rockbridge-Haiti<br />
Medical Alliance was born.<br />
“Our inspiration was a desire to guide and support<br />
impoverished people—empower them to help themselves,”<br />
Dr. Kerschl says.<br />
A helping hand<br />
Dr. Kerschl and Harvey decided to concentrate their efforts<br />
in Fond Pierre, located in the central part of Haiti (about<br />
three hours by car from Port-au-Prince). in addition to being<br />
in need of help—Haiti is the poorest country in the Western<br />
18 <strong>Health</strong>Matters Fall 2012<br />
A typical trip<br />
Dr. Kerschl usually recruits six missionaries (who can<br />
include physicians, nurses, allied health and medical<br />
students, EMTs and nonmedical persons) to accompany<br />
him on his medical missions to Haiti.<br />
After flying to Port-au-Prince, the team travels over<br />
mountains and through rough roads and neighboring<br />
villages to Fond Pierre. For the next three days, they run<br />
the clinic, seeing hundreds of adults and children. On<br />
the fourth day, the team (along with a Haitian nurse and,<br />
on the last mission, a Haitian physician) packs up their<br />
supplies and travels to Paredon, where they treat an<br />
average of 300 people in one day.<br />
Hemisphere—the closer proximity to the united States meant<br />
that more frequent trips to Fond Pierre would be possible.<br />
Since its founding in 2009, the Rockbridge-Haiti Medical<br />
Alliance has organized four medical missions to this area;<br />
a fifth trip is currently being planned for March 2013.<br />
Making progress<br />
in nearly four years, the Rockbridge-Haiti Medical Alliance,
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