Dr. Joe Miller of Lexington is one of the many physicians helping to bring relief to Haiti. He has been very active treating patients that were injured. This blog will help give insight into his journey and what's taking place in Haiti. Here is some background on Joe and his wife, Linda.
Joe and Linda Miller moved to Lexington in July, 1984 so Joe could be the new doctor at Plum Creek Medical Group. Though Joe was born and raised in Omaha, he knew he wanted to practice family medicine in a small town. Linda, born and raised in Iowa and Wisconsin, met Joe the senior year of high school in Papillion, NE. They raised three children in Lexington. Tim is a junior accountant in Lincoln and plays bass guitar in the Stewart John Band, Matt is a UNL senior in Construction Management and Melinda is a sophomore nursing student at Bryan LGH, though in Spain this semester in language and culture classes. Joe and Linda have always believed in giving back to the community, and have been involved in church, city, school and statewide activities for years. In November, 2009, Joe and Melinda spent a week in Haiti working in a medical clinic in Pierre Payen. Joe's contact with one of the Haitian doctors led him back there to help and bring much needed supplies. He traveled with people from Water 4 Haiti, a Nebraska organization. Linda will be relaying Joe's experience through this blog.
Joe and Linda Miller moved to Lexington in July, 1984 so Joe could be the new doctor at Plum Creek Medical Group. Though Joe was born and raised in Omaha, he knew he wanted to practice family medicine in a small town. Linda, born and raised in Iowa and Wisconsin, met Joe the senior year of high school in Papillion, NE. They raised three children in Lexington. Tim is a junior accountant in Lincoln and plays bass guitar in the Stewart John Band, Matt is a UNL senior in Construction Management and Melinda is a sophomore nursing student at Bryan LGH, though in Spain this semester in language and culture classes. Joe and Linda have always believed in giving back to the community, and have been involved in church, city, school and statewide activities for years. In November, 2009, Joe and Melinda spent a week in Haiti working in a medical clinic in Pierre Payen. Joe's contact with one of the Haitian doctors led him back there to help and bring much needed supplies. He traveled with people from Water 4 Haiti, a Nebraska organization. Linda will be relaying Joe's experience through this blog.
Posted
in Dr. Joe Miller
at 02:00PM on 02/05/2010
2/5/2010 Joe is sitting in the West Palm Beach airport this afternoon waiting for a 6:00 p.m. flight on American Airlines to take him to Omaha, via Dallas, arriving 11:00 tonight. The dog and I are soon leaving to pick him up. He missed his connecting 12:15 p.m. flight. The small jet he was on this morning had to refuel on an island (that's what he told me) after they left Port au Prince. He said he has been superbly impressed with the skill and dedication of the teams of doctors and nurses he's worked with these last 2 weeks. They were not able to transfer the young female patient to the USS Comfort. He told me her injuries will leave her paralyzed if she can't get the highly advanced help she needs. One little girl among many ... thousands ... hundreds of thousands ... but he knows her name and face. And that makes it very real.
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Posted
in Dr. Joe Miller
at 05:16PM on 02/04/2010
2/4/2010 Talked with Joe last night and received a short email from him as he's trying to figure out how to return to Nebraska this weekend. He said the pump at the hospital went out last night, then corrected himself by saying the pump is actually working, the problem is they are running out of water in the well. Not good at all. He thought he might be the one to accompany a young female spine patient, via helicopter, to the USS Comfort on Thursday. Evidently it involved making a lot of arrangements.
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Posted
in Dr. Joe Miller
at 04:41PM on 02/03/2010
2/3/2010 Joe called last night on a borrowed phone. He and Terry, the ER resident, went into Port au Prince to look for a suction machine so they could put a makeshift wound vac together. He told me if they had a wound vac ... or make one ... the crew believed they could save about half a dozen limbs on patients. They found a suction machine and took it back to the hospital at Pierre Payen. They did not go into the destroyed part of the city, though one of their crew had been there earlier. Joe said to me, "He said it was ugly, really ugly." The crew member told the others about walking into a tent holding about 20 young women, many with amputations. The docs at Pierre Payen have needed to perform only one amputation, an elderly man's foot. Joe said there is a plastic surgeon working with them this week and another plastic surgeon is arriving this weekend for next week.
Each crew that comes in brings supplies so they basically have what they need; he said they have more suture than they may EVER need. There are places in Port au Prince that are storing items so whoever needs something can go there to look for it, like the suction machine. That's probably an overly simplified description, but that's what I think I heard.
Dr. Vic Binkley (he established the Pierre Payen hospital) isn't arriving until Friday and is flying with medical people on a Haiti relief jet. Joe isn't certain, but thinks he may be able to hop a ride on the jet when it returns to the states. If he does, he doesn't know where it will land, but for some reason he thought Indiana. I'll call American Airlines and ask if they'll change his Feb. 14 return ticket to another date ... yet unknown ... from a yet unknown city ... to Omaha. I asked if he felt he was burning out and he said no, not yet.
The well diggers he traveled with are constantly at work. The hospital compound had to call for their help a day or two ago, as one of the wells quit working. We take our clean water for granted.
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Posted
in Dr. Joe Miller
at 03:22PM on 02/02/2010
2/2/2010 Received another email from Joe last night. He wrote that the internet at sketchy at best and very slow. Reported that the new crew is going well, but maybe not quite as well as the crew that was there last week. He indicated Mondays are always bad for multiple reasons. The Haitian docs hold clinics and they send the crew anything earthquake related. Mondays are also an x-ray day which involves transporting x-ray patients. I don't know where they transport them to or how they're doing it. There's also orientation for the new team.
He wrote, "Tomorrow I am going to Port-au-Prince with Terry, a 4th yearr ER resident, much more organized than his years. We will try to get some things we need for cases and maybe more patients, but right now we have a backlog of 15 procedures. They did 4 femurs today, big cases. I have so much to tell you about but this is so slow (assuming he means the internet). I do not know when I will be home. Dr. Binkley is not coming til Friday. I may try to come back with this crew Saturday. Terry is staying for a month and will be the continuity." I wonder about him being in Port au Prince today and what he's seeing, hearing, learning.
He wrote, "Tomorrow I am going to Port-au-Prince with Terry, a 4th yearr ER resident, much more organized than his years. We will try to get some things we need for cases and maybe more patients, but right now we have a backlog of 15 procedures. They did 4 femurs today, big cases. I have so much to tell you about but this is so slow (assuming he means the internet). I do not know when I will be home. Dr. Binkley is not coming til Friday. I may try to come back with this crew Saturday. Terry is staying for a month and will be the continuity." I wonder about him being in Port au Prince today and what he's seeing, hearing, learning.
Joe's original plane ticket had a March 10 return date, it was changed to February 14, he's now learned American isn't flying until February 19, yet there may be a possibility he can return to the states sometime this weekend. I think I'll wait to pick him up (in Omaha? Lincoln? Kansas City?) once I know he's somewhere in the U.S.
Thank you, everyone, for your prayers for him, the teams, the patients.
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Posted
in Dr. Joe Miller
at 03:20PM on 02/02/2010
1/30/2010 Joe's email tonight had this in the subject line: "Haiti. I try to write each time at night and the generator goes off and I lose everything." I had forgotten that the generators don't run 24 hours. I've wondered how their supply of diesel fuel is holding out.
He wrote that the crew he's been working with left today and Annie would be bringing 3 more patients in the next hour that Matt (trauma surgeon) had selected before leaving. His words: "It was a great crew and I am a little anxious about the next crew. We continue to put systems in place and change the physical layout of how we do things to make things better. I do not know the full make up of the next crew but the head guy is Corey Colling, an orthopedic traumatologist, dept chair and lecturer. Hopefully there won't be a bunch of big egos. They were not with the last crew and they were superb technically. We did an open back yesterday on a 25 year old paraplegic with preserved sensation to stabilize his back. Great work."
He said he's not taken many pictures but Matt had taken about 1,000 with a very good camera and would send them to us on a disc. Late yesterday afternoon, the group went to Annie's (meaning the Bon Samaritan Orphanage in Montrouis) and took the kids to the beach and that it was a needed break for all of them. Afterward, they made rounds and went to Club Indigo to eat. It was the first time he'd been off the hospital compound this week. Their work days are 14-16 hours long and he and Glen, an ER doc from Canada, are coordinating post-op care. He wrote, "We had 3 nurses; 2 were great and the 3rd had been here 2 weeks and was burning out."
Even though his return ticket on American Airlines is for February 14, now he doesn't know when he'll return as he says he has learned American is not flying till at least February 19th. Does that mean flying into and out of Port au Prince? I don't know.
Even though his return ticket on American Airlines is for February 14, now he doesn't know when he'll return as he says he has learned American is not flying till at least February 19th. Does that mean flying into and out of Port au Prince? I don't know.
A note of explanation ... Dr. Vic Binkley is from Michigan and is the doctor who established the hospital at Pierre Payen and has been connected with it and Bon Samaritan Orphanage for many years. He was diagnosed with cancer this past fall. Joe wrote that Vic and his wife are coming to Pierre Payen, hopefully Feb. 1 to spend a week and see the people and place for probably the last time. I don't believe Joe has yet met Vic, though I know they've talked by phone. Joe wrote that this visit will be undoubtedly be very emotional. He says, "Utilizing the hospital in this way has been a dream for years and to see it will be satisfying but he still has plans and dreams, per Steve." Steve is a non-medical person who has taken over Vic's role in scheduling medical teams.
Joe writes that he has some homesickness, but they are helping a lot of people. They're receiving 3-4 new cases a day for admission. I originally thought the hospital had only 12 beds, but now I'm not sure. It may be larger than that. Patients are getting great care. He writes, "I have been giving Annie or Bob money and they have been bringing food or giving the patients 200 gouds a day. Most have minimal family here and even those that do, have minimal or no resources." When he and Melinda were there in November, they learned that families of hospitalized patients are required to provide what their family member needs, including sheets for the hospital bed. They told me of one hospitalized woman who needed insulin; the hospital didn't have any and her family had to travel an hour to buy some, then return with it. I will be curious to learn how the medicine and supplies he took with him were used.
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