Dr. Brian McKeon and a team of vascular, orthopedic, and plastic surgeons flew down to Haiti on March 5th to help the injured from the earthquake that took place on January 12, 2010.
Steve Bulpett from the Boston Herald reports on the relief mission - please click here to view the article on BostonHerald.com
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Team doc off to Haiti by Steve Bulpett
After facing the 76ers tonight, the Celtics will return home in the wee hours tomorrow morning. A few hours later, Dr. Brian McKeon will embark on a road trip far more adventurous than your average journey to Philadelphia. The Celtics team physician is part of a group bound for Haiti to help people injured in the Jan. 12 earthquake there.
McKeon's partners will watch over the Celts while he's gone.
"I checked with the team, and they were all for it," he said. "They gave me full, 100 percent backing."
The group formed on the fly, meeting at a surgeon's house a couple of weeks ago. There will be people from McKeon's home, New England Baptist Hospital, as well as Beverly Hospital, Mass. General and others.
"It keeps growing," McKeon said. "It's a conglomerate of independent physicians based on this private sponsorship. We're not attached to any big organization."
They are, however, attached to Sam Byrne from CrossHarbor Capital.
"He's done very well and he wanted to do something," McKeon said of Byrne. "Each physician or nurse knows him on some level. He put this team together - plastic surgeon, vascular surgeon, orthopedic surgeon and so on.
"The amazing part of this that's so touching is that last Monday we were planning how to do this. We were going to cram together and try to get on a little plane and work our way down there. But now we're going down on an Airbus that Sam has coordinated. It's not just a medical mission anymore; it's a relief mission.
"All our wives and significant others have held clothes drives and food drives. New England Baptist stepped up with machinery and equipment, and other people have really come through."
The trip is expected to last 7-10 days. McKeon can't be more specific because one problem remains.
"We don't have a ride back yet," he said with a laugh. "We're still working on that."
McKeon is prepared for long days of work.
"They've lined up surgeries for us," he said. "It's mostly orthopedic. This far out (after the earthquake), the people we'll be seeing won't have major life-threatening issues. Most of it will be nonhealed wounds or things that haven't gone well, infections. The plastic surgeons will be repairing wounds and doing skin grafting." "There are some people that have gone before us that we know really well. They're still there, and they'll be signing out to us when we get down there."
Credit: By STEVE BULPETT
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