Civil–Military Collaboration in the Initial Medical Response to the Earthquake in Haiti

Two days after Haiti's devastating earthquake, a medical relief team made up in part of four emergency physicians and four emergency nurses from Stanford University Hospital and three emergency physicians from Columbia University Medical Center traveled under the auspices of the International Medical Corps, a nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles, to provide emergency medical support. After an all-night bus ride from the Dominican Republic, the team arrived at the Hopital de l'Universite d'Etat d'Haiti in Port-au-Prince on the morning of January 17. The scene we faced was apocalyptic. Approximately 800 victims were within the hospital compound, most of them . . .