MOUNTAIN MEDICINE
EDUCATION
The Department of Homeland Security has developed new Austere Protocol guidelines (with the input of Mountain Medicine Staff) to address potentially catastrophic disasters where the only trained help available are local rescue squads. We simulate the reality of creating a facility given the total breakdown of all outside support and utilities. Given our experience in Haiti, there are few others who know the realities of this situation better.
GLOBAL INITIATIVES
Mountain Medicine believes strongly in serving the world. In 2010 we sponsored two staff members to respond to the earthquake in Haiti. While the rest of the world was debating whether it was safe enough to go, we were on the ground and staffing a makeshift hospital in the town of Cabaret. Denied critical supplies from the huge UN stockpile, we had to beg, barter, and steal to get enough medicines to treat the severely injured in our area. This story is told in "My Heart In Haiti, a Physicians Experience during the 2010 Earthquake" (available on Amazon). In 2011 and again in 2013, we partnered with the Himalayan Health Exchange to send our director to the high Indian Himalayas to teach at makeshift clinics for the underserved. Time and time again, the principles of Wilderness Medicine came into play as the team used creativity to solve the variety of medical problems that accompanied each patient.