Tina Casimir This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. South Florida Hospital News - Special Focus

   www.southfloridahospitalnews.c - [Cached]

   Published on: 7/31/2004   Last Visited: 5/19/2005

   Tina Casimir
   
   "Going on these medical missions changes you spiritually. You don't whine so much about everything like we do here. Please, we complain about nothing here - about traffic, about prices, about a bad hair day," says Tina Casimir, C.R.N.A., nurse anesthetist with Jackson Memorial Hospital. "In Haiti, where I went with Project Medishare and University of Miami plastic surgeons, the people start walking to where we'll be days in advance. They wait in line in any weather, just on the hope they or someone they love will get to be seen by us."
   
   Casimir and her fellow medical-missionaries treated people in 2003 and 2004 with cleft palate, cleft lips, burn scarring, and keloids. She stayed four or five days each trip.
   
   "We mostly did surgeries for kids and teenagers. Sometimes we worked on an adult. We did a 40-year old woman with cleft lip on my last trip. It was gratifying to see the results - no one should have to live with a such a disfigurement," she says.
   
   Casimir was born in Haiti and speaks Creole.
   
   "I came here to the US when I was five years old. I was raised here, but still feel a special connection to Haiti," she says. "I went because I could help."
   
   Casimir says the experience stretched her nursing skills.
   ...
   Casimir says all supplies were low, so conservation was important.