As an active member of the University of Scranton Medical Alumni Council, Doctor Pamela Taffera ’02 recently returned from a medical mission trip to Haiti.  Along with fellow U of S alumni Dr. Rich Bevilacqua, Dr. Greg Lynch and U of S students Ed DelSole and Mary Elise Lynch, Taffera spent six days organizing and working in free medical clinics serving Haiti’s poorest areas. A 2002 graduate of the University of Scranton, Taffera earned both a Masters of Business Administration degree from Saint Joseph’s University and a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.  The University of Scranton Medical Alumni Council is proud to have Dr. Taffera as a featured speaker at the upcoming Alumni Medical Symposium on March 28, 2009. 

While in Haiti,
Dr. Taffera sent messages to friends and family. To read the compilation of these messages click here.

Excerpt from Messages from Pam Taffera sent from Haiti January 11-17, 2009:

1/12/2009
"First we went out to a clinic run by the order of Mother Theresa to see patients in their clinic. We counted out meds, and saw new patients for the day. The most difficult and frustrating part was not having a translator. We are taught in medical school that 80% of a diagnosis is from the patient history, 10% from physical exam, 10% from tests/studies...but I couldn’t ask the patients about their symptoms or how long they felt this way. The children laughed at me as I weakly attempted French from a vocabulary list Elise brought along... We treated a man with heart failure, another with pyelonephritis, 2 children with gastroenteritis (maybe infectious?), and lots of coughs with diagnoses yet to be determined."