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Blog spotlight: Nurse reflects on Haiti medical mission trip

Nurse Leader Weekly, June 22, 2009

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Along with sorting through the emotions and memories from her medical mission trip to Haiti, Bonnie Clair, MSN, RN, had another tall task: She had to sort through the pictures. "I took about 400," she says. "I took pictures of Haiti and the Haitian people as well as the people I went with. I didn't want to forget anyone."

Clair, the retention project manager at Cox Health in Springfield, MO, went on a medical mission trip to Haiti for a week in March. It was seven days she'll never forget. After a few weeks of letting the experience sink in, she candidly shared her thoughts, images, and memories with us. We've featured her story in three parts on our Web site. Here are links to Part I and Part II. And here's Part III, the aftermath:

So will you go back?

Definitely.

How much did it all cost?

My plane ticket was $1,080 and it was about $400 for the week. That covered translators and food while we were there. So, in total, less than $1,500. But it was different for everyone. It really depended where you originated from.

Is there any one memory that stands out above the rest?

I'm still kind of sorting it all out. But there's one thing that does stand out: I was taking blood pressures and talking to the people (through my translator) and it struck me how many of these hundreds of individuals waiting to get in the clinic have the capacity to be excellent doctors and nurses. It's not that they're unintelligent; it's that they have no access.

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