Student is hooked on helping to heal Haiti

University of Central Florida graduate student Dennrik Abrahan still has a ways to go before he can be a doctor. Until then, he is lending a helping hand to people from Haiti in need of medical care at local clinics.

During his tenure as an undergrad at UCF, Abrahan participated in a club called the International Medical Outreach. IMO gave him his first opportunity to fly down to Haiti in 2009. After that trip, he became the Haiti Village Health volunteer coordinator, a position he held until August.

Haiti Village Health was founded by a Canadian emergency physician, Dr. Tiffany Keenan. There, Abrahan served on the front line of medical care, health education and nutritional support in places of need.

Abrahan was one of the medical volunteers that helped teach public health education, run village outreach programs, family planning and child nutritional support at the clinic in Bod me Limbe village, 20 miles from the country's capital, Port-au-Prince.

Lack of money, supplies

According to Haiti Village Health, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, as 70 percent of the population lives on a dollar a day. They also don't have access to clean drinking water, and 30 percent of all children born there don't make it to the age of 5.

Abrahan said the medical needs of patients varied from day-to-day, but sometimes the general problems that he dealt with were basic stomach pains due to chronic hunger or worms, and upper respiratory issues such as coughing.

Spending five weeks in Haiti over the summer, Abrahan had the chance to teach others from the skills he has acquired as a UCF medical student. Abrahan not only had the opportunity to teach the Haitian people new medical skills, but he learned, as well.

Rebuilding and relationships

Katherine Tadros and Abrahan became close friends while working together as officers for the IMO program. They went to Cap-Haitien, Haiti together in August 2009 and to Miragoane, Haiti in March 2010 on medical volunteer trips.

"Dennrik has done such a wonderful job of setting an example of how you can utilize all of your resources to contribute and help communities in need," Tadros said. "I know that Haiti has a special place in Dennrik's heart, and his dedication to serving those people consistently is a great thing to witness.

Even though their time as officers has ended, their friendship has continued and they still keep in touch.

Abrahan shadowed doctors who treated rare, sometimes deadly diseases. He said that one of the most difficult things he had to witness was not being able to help some of the patients immediately.

"They don't have heart surgeons available right away," Abrahan said. "In the United States, those things would be totally covered and that would never happen."

He also mentioned that even medical supplies and certain medicines were unavailable, and if someone needed something right away, there was nothing that he could do.

One of the doctors that Abrahan shadowed was Dr. Thomas Lacy, who has a pediatrics practice in east Orlando.

Lacy believes that Abrahan is "hooked on Haiti," a phrase that many of the volunteers use to describe a person who visits Haiti to help, and never wants to leave.

"Dennrik is really passionate about people in Haiti," Lacy said. "He's really interested and passionate about helping people in Haiti anyway that he can."

Abrahan has many memories that he can take from his experience in Haiti, but one he will never forget is the sing-a-long with the co-volunteers and the Haitian children. The group taught the children the words to "Imagine" by John Lennon in both English and Creole. The children even taught the volunteers how to sing one of their favorite gospel songs.

"That was definitely one of those times that stood out for me while I was there," Abrahan said.

Time in Haiti

The first week for Abrahan consisted of pre-planning for pediatric consults and vaccination programs; the second week, the volunteers executed that plan. In his third week, he linked up with his mentor, Lacy, and worked on a program to help babies breathe and in-patient clinics in Limonade, Haiti.