Public health in Haiti

Pediatrics and Haiti - excerpted from a Kansas City business journal
“I can do anything, I just can't do it for you this morning.”  Dr. Christopher Shaffer, a physician in San Francisco, likes to quote his mother from his high school years. During those years his mother, Dr. Kathleen Shaffer, was experiencing a surge of many roles - mother, wife, physician, small business owner, teacher, and volunteer. What many would call being over-committed, she called being blessed. Her son learned about patience in the midst of her many patients.
Kathy Shaffer grew up in St. Louis and moved to Kansas City for medical school and a residency in pediatrics. While being a woman in medicine was no longer uncommon, most women physicians chose hospital careers that could more easily protect family time. Dr. Shaffer was the first woman pediatrician to enter private practice in the Kansas City area. She built that practice for 35 years, dedicating herself to forming close relationships with her young patients and their families. She has only recently retired, saying good-bye to one of the largest and most loved pediatric practice groups in the Kansas City area.
But private practice pediatrics is only one strand of Dr. Shaffer’s dedication to the health of children. For most of her professional career, she has also traveled to Haiti to build health and educational opportunities. Her work began with mobile medical clinics for children who had few opportunities for healthcare. She organizing groups of medical volunteers who, in tandem, could provide a system of ongoing care and preventative health services for children. Soon her Haitian patients, particularly the girls, taught her of a hope for education that was as urgent as their need for healthcare. Dr. Shaffer came to believe that education, if fact, was essential to sustained health improvement. She expanded her medical focus to include the development of primary schools. This required additional fundraising and the recruitment of volunteers with skills in education, construction, water and sanitation, and community development. One result was St. Augustine’s School, a primary and middle school located in a remote village in Southern Haiti. This program now serves 300 children and prepares them for high school and beyond. 
When it became clear that better nutrition could further improve school performance, Dr. Shaffer set a goal to provide each student with a nutritionally complete hot lunch every day. She organizes an annual dinner for 150 friends, for which she cooks, that raises enough money in one night to feed 300 children every day of the school year (over 75,000 meals a year). This may not be the usual work of a pediatrician, but she sees it as the correct treatment for her patients in Haiti. 
After 25 years of diligent community engagement, building, teacher training, and parent encouragement, students at this remote school now achieve the highest test scores among schools in southern Haiti. She can boast that “her children”, as she calls them, are both vaccinated and educated.
Dr. Shaffer has not allowed geography or a narrow definition healthcare  to be professional borders. Leading a teacher training program, installing a clean water system, or hugging a cook in Haiti are all a part of being a pediatrician.
Dr. Shaffer is the first to say that progress in Haiti was never an individual effort. But it is apparent that it was her dedication to health and education, as basic human rights for children, that drew others to accompany her on frequent trips to Haiti. There are scores of physician, nurses, teachers, ministers, students, and other volunteers who point to a trip with Dr. Shaffer as the inspiration of their own outreach work.
Dr. Shaffer’s husband is a pediatrician and neonatologist.  Their daughter is a pediatric allergist in Kansas City. Their son, mentioned above, is a pediatric anesthesiologist in San Francisco. All look to Mom as the model of activism and tenacity that are part of a physician’s compassion. 
Dr. Shaffer continues to work in Haiti, but splits most of her retirement time in Mill Valley and Kansas City, investing herself now in art of grand-parenting.