Haiti native among doctors aboard Comfort - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Haiti native among doctors aboard Comfort

ABOARD THE HOSPITAL SHIP COMFORT — Of the 1,100 doctors, nurses and support staff on the Comfort, there is one doctor who has a personal stake in the mission to Haiti.

“Lots of family friends are still not found,” Dr. Mill Etienne said.

Etienne, a neurologist specializing in head injuries and epilepsy, left Haiti and moved to New York when he was 5.

“It’s very emotional,” Etienne said.

Etienne is the son of a cab driver and a housekeeper. He joined the Navy after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks while finishing medical school.

For Etienne, the ties to Haiti and the disaster are personal.

“The last person we were looking for is one of my cousins. After two days she was discovered underneath some bricks and rubble,” he said.

And now he will play a role in the recovery effort.

“I’ve been getting a lot of text messages, e-mails from family and friends saying, ‘When you get to Haiti, go look for this person, in this building.’ Obviously that is not going to be my role,” Etienne said. “Our way of helping the country is by bringing this hospital. That frees up other people to go and pick up the other jobs, like going out and looking for people.

“Haitians are fighters. And even though there is a huge disaster, anyone — like my cousin who we found at the bottom of the building, she was there, hanging in there, waiting for somebody to come and discover her and get her out of there.”

Etienne is leading a small group of Creole and French speakers on the ship. He is also counseling fellow doctors about the challenges of treating people they may not be able to communicate with. Even desperate disaster victims deserve the final say when it comes to their medical treatment, he said.