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June 12
Wild Animal Waystation
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June 19
Billie Greer
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Next Week...
June 12
"Wild Animal Waystation"
Karen Suter
The Waystation is an exotic and wild animal rescue and sanctuary reserve.
Upcoming Meetings...
June 19
Billie Greer
Director of Governor Schwarzenegger's
Los Angeles Office
June 26
Pres. Chris' Swan Song
Director of Governor Schwarzenegger's
Los Angeles Office
Other Events...
Saturday, June 21, 6pm
The Seaside Demotion of Christopher T. Bradford
The Beach Club, 201 Pacific Coast Highway, Santa Monica. Black Tie (Optional).
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This Week...
DR CATHERINE JULLIARD at WVRC on June 5th
MIKE YOUSEM led the Pledge. LENNY was up next, having asked me for the ‘saved’ words of Smile, Sing a Song I did keep the song sheets, but couldn’t find them in time, so we switched to God Bless America, on which we do pretty good. LENNY, I’ll bring them next week, for sure. LEE DUNAYER gave the Invocation. “For friends…especially the fellowship of Rotary we give our sincere thanks. May these tokens of your bounty nourish our physical bodies…for the challenges that are ours in Rotary. Keep us always mindful of the needs of others…We ask these things in the name of your eternal truth.” Good, as always, LEE.
SEAN McMILLAN introduced his guest, Visiting Rotarian Alan Dias, from LA Five.
Methinks SUNNY was our usual guest, and KATIA VAISBERG brought four other Rotaractors – Incoming President Nikkole Valdez, Haesur Jo, Kency Dittlea, and Stephen Gardner, and I think all of them have been with us before. PP STEVE SCHERER introduced DAVID FRIEDMAN as our newest member – and, for a change, I already had his WVRC Badge to present to him.
ANNOUNCMENTS –
LEAH VRIESMAN was applauded for personally delivering 1,445 books to be included in the Pyramid of Books at the Convention. Twenty-two boxes! – Good Work, LEAH. We are expecting the Guinness Book of Records to certify this as the largest book pyramid ever! ED GAULD was also noted as putting this all together, and our Auxiliary provided Over 200 books, which were all included in our total.
Our Visiting Rotarian from LA Five, Alan Dais, told of the coming 100th Anniversary of the six oldest Rotary Clubs – It will be celebrated by LA Five on Friday evening, June 13th. The Clubs are San Francisco, Tacoma, Seattle, LA 5 and Oakland. It will be at the Music Center, cost is $100 per person, and President CHRIS has other details.
Our WVRC International Rotary Convention Reception will take place on Monday the 16th, from 5 to 6:30 pm here at the Faculty Center. All members and spouses are invited.
And of course, the Demotion is still coming up – the date is Saturday the 21st at the Beach Club. This is always a special event, so get those checks in for your guest, please.
It was June Birthday time – and for a change, Illinois provided more of our members than did California. GENE PRINDLE started us off on the 2nd – and HE was from LA, By Golly! RAY ZICKFELD liked the 8th, but chose Chicago. WARREN DODSON brought us back to California, Pasadena, to be exact, on the 14th. PP STEVE SCHERER preferred the 21st, in Rochelle, Illinois, and Dr. Floyd Dewhirst came along on the 25th, in Harvard, Illinois. The only two we could serenade were WARREN and STEVE, since they were present, and they of course signed the Bookplates for this month.
PP STEVE DAY came forward to tell us that next week, the 12th, WVRC members and friends are invited to tour the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, which will fully open shortly. This will take place right after our regular meeting that day, and will be a unique opportunity to see the latest in state-of –the-art Medical Facilities. He also announced this year’s Paul Harris Dinner, which will be on Sunday, October 12th, starting at 3:30, in Buena Park. It will be ‘family-friendly’, so please put it on your calendar.
KATIA VAISBERG was asked forward, to present a report on Rotaract Activities during this past year. They had a number of programs, and incoming President Nikkole Valdez shared the podium with her. The power-point presentation started by showing two posters which were displayed on campus. These identified what Rotaract does, plus giving contact information, and they were produced by one of the parents. Their next event was supporting the Special Olympics, and this was very much a hands-on project. They mingled with the participants, and generally assisted with officiating, etc. They next visited Project Chicken Soup, which is a Jewish commercial kitchen, preparing food for AIDS patients all over LA. They did some cooking, and some delivering. During this time they donated $150 to Shelter Box, a R.I. project providing help after the earthquake in China, in the name of Westwood Village Rotary.
When we made WAPIs (Water purification instruments) they had over 15 members there, and together with Rotarians and friends, produced 525 WAPIs this year – last year 400 were produced, so we are all learning how to put them together. Again this year they participated in house-building in Tecate, Mexico. This time they were adding on to a house occupied by a single mother and four children – and her kids helped a lot, all day long. You can see that our Rotaract group, under Katia, was really busy and helped make a difference in several projects. Katia will be graduating, and our Youth Committee under ANN SAMSON presented her with a lovely Certificate as a thank you for a job well done. We wish her well in her application to Medical School.
SEAN McMILLAN reported on our progress with Angel Flight. As noted above, his guest was Alan Dias, who is the new Executive Director of Angel Flight. SEAN presented a check from WVRC to Earth Angels for $3250, which is in conjunction with support from Santa Monica Rotary. MARK ROGO oversees Earth Angels for WVRC, which is the ground transportation segment of Angel Flight. This is a going program, and both SEAN and MARK deserve our THANKS for their excellent efforts.
President CHRIS introduced our Speaker, Dr. Catherine Juillard. She graduated from Stanford University, where she also captained their National Championship Women’s Volleyball Team. The next three years were in the Peace Corps in Senegal where she was a rural health volunteer. Her next training was at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Following her M.D. degree, she has just completed a Master’s degree in Public Health at Johns Hopkins. Her interest is now focused on improving her scientific research skills to pursue a career in improving injury prevention and trauma systems in sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Juillard is fluent in French and Pulaar, languages which were developed during her three years with the Peace Corps. In 2009 she plans to return to UCLA to complete her surgical training and pursue a fellowship in Trauma Surgery and Critical Care.
Dr Juillard began by thanking us for inviting her to speak. Her subject: the problem of injuries and trauma in the developing world. This is an increasing problem, and it needs to be addressed urgently. Her power-point presentation helped to emphasize major aspects of her talk. Her first pictures showed the village in Senegal where she lived for three years – no running water, no electricity, and the local language was Pulaar. Their single well was 60 meters deep (180 feet, roughly) and they had to pull water up every morning, then carry it back to the village, about a KM away. The rest of the day was spent cooking the grain they had raised, with firewood wherever it could be found. Survival was a 24-hour job, and it was a meaningful experience in her life.
While there she was involved in a car accident. There were 20 people in the vehicle, and two were killed – she was lucky to be relatively unhurt. At the time she thought it was merely an accident. She later learned that 3.5 million people are killed each year in unintentional accidents. That comes to 6% of the deaths worldwide. Although we have more cars, 90% of these deaths occur in poor countries. Road traffic causes a total of 30% of these deaths – that’s over 3,000 people per day. Additionally, 15 to 20 million people are injured by traffic. For this to occur in a poor country, where you have to be mobile to get water and gather wood, injuries present a much greater handicap.
The leading causes of death change as we become more industrialized. By 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that traffic will become the 3rd leading cause of death in the world, compared to presently being the eleventh. As a comparison, in the industrial world there are 60 cars for every 100 people – comparable figures for the 3rd world are one car per 100 people. Her maps showed that Africa and the Middle East are far and away the most prone to traffic injuries. The risks increase because of poor roads and old and badly maintained cars. The part of the problem Dr. Juillard wants to address is the almost total lack of care facilities for people in these poor areas. After her accident, for example, they were lucky to be picked up by another vehicle, and taken to a village where there was one nurse and one nurse’s aide. This meant that eighteen people descended on this one nurse, some with head injuries and others with compound fractures.
Cameroon is between west and central Africa, with 18 million residents, 80% of whom speak French and the rest speak English, plus the local dialects. Furthermore, only 47% of the residents have electricity, and about 50% have safe drinking water. Unintentional injuries are the fourth leading cause of death. To put that into perspective, trauma deaths are more frequent than those from malaria, diarrhea, and TB combined! Domestic violence is another major issue. 53% of women reported being affected by domestic violence – 15% had broken bones. The European Union is planning to give sub-Saharan countries money to improve their roads – which has to increase unintentional injuries.
The WHO is starting to take on this problem. WHO is essentially a Consulting Body for the world’s Ministers of Health. Guidelines For Essential Trauma Care, by Dr. Martin Monono is the ‘bible’ in the field, and Dr Juillard has met him. Unfortunately, only the English version is widely available – another reason for her interest in French Equatorial Africa. The degree of care starts with the Tertiary care level, then the Department Hospital level, and finally the real Health Clinic level. Starting in September, she will conduct a thorough evaluation of the health care situation in Cameroon – basically a Needs Assessment, using the above Guidelines as a template. She will concentrate on the four provinces in Cameroon with the most trauma cases. and look at the three levels of care in each province. The first intent is to find mismatches – that is, equipment on site with no one trained in its use, or again, x-ray equipment and trained personnel standing by, but without the needed x-ray film. Another example is overstaffing during the day, when the major need may be at night. She will try to evaluate the physical resources on hand and maximize their use. All it sometimes takes is someone with an overview.
Brief Q&A. What were you doing in the Village? It was mostly public health work, training three or four residents to perform. Since no one can read or write, instruction takes much longer than you expect. Based on their local needs assessment, it was important not to favor your own priorities in the training process. Why is there such a level of domestic violence? In general, there is some tolerance for hitting women – but she never encountered broken bones, for instance. I don’t understand your term, unintentional injuries. These are mainly accidents – war, for example, causes intentional injury. Also, the delivery of care is vastly different in a stable society as opposed to a war zone. How can surgery even be performed in these rural areas? This is a serious problem, and in some cases, compound fractures are simply untreated How can Rotary help you? Dr. Juillard and President CHRIS have discussed her situation at length, and she would welcome our financial assistance. YOE says, AttaBoy, Rotary!
Back to the here and now, and Words of Wisdom, Winston Churchill:
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
And a final note – next week we will hear about the final push to Eradicate Polio from India. Speaking personally, I believe our Polio Pllus Program should be our finest hour.
Don’t miss next week, please!
