Jan 5, 2011 By: wpadmin
Dr. Gary Berger '88YC, '85YUHS will remember his five days in Port-au-Prince forever. Berger normally spends his days performing cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgery procedures in his Manhattan practice, but during the last week in February, he worked feverishly to try to save the limbs of countless earthquake-ravaged victims in Haiti.
Berger's journey to the aftermath of the devastating earthquake was set in motion by a phone call from Dr. Donald Roland, a fellow plastic surgeon who asked to borrow medical supplies from Berger's operating room to take to the Dominican Republic on his own mission to treat survivors. One week later, Roland called again saying that what the victims really needed was reconstructive surgery. ''He said to me, 'this is why we went to medical school,' and, cliché as it sounded, that really hit home,'' Berger stated.
Armed with medical supplies donated from several sources including Berger's synagogue, the Young Israel of New Rochelle, he boarded a plane heading to Santo Domingo where he met Dr. Jacob Freiman '95YC, Berger's cousin and also a plastic surgeon from Palm Beach, FL. They rented a car and drove across the country to Good Samaritan Hospital in Jimani, near the Haitian border, but their efforts were thwarted by Dominican authorities who had stopped allowing Haitians seeking medical aid to enter the country. The hospital was being shut down, resulting in a significant decrease in the number of patients from 500 to fewer than 50. Berger was told that patients were getting better, so healthcare needs weren't as dire as they had been when the earthquake first hit.
The plastic surgeons then trekked on barely drivable roads to the epicenter of the devastation - Port-au-Prince - or more specifically, the University Hospital of Haiti, around the corner from the devastated Presidential Palace.