Vanessa came to Loyola University New Orleans from Haiti in 1999. While an undergraduate at Loyola, Vanessa conducted important research on Chagas disease, which earned her co-authorship with Loyola professors in the 2003 Journal of Medical Entomology article on the Chagas insect vector. She also ably assisted Dr. Patricia Dorn at a workshop held in Guatemala to teach molecular techniques to Central American investigators. At Loyola she was also active in the Gospel choir and the campus Christian fellowship ministry. Her outstanding academic accomplishments resulted in Stanford University flying her back for a second interview to try to convince her to go to Medical School there on a partial scholarship. She chose McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where she completed her MD in 2003 and then residency in Pediatrics and fellowship in Infectious Diseases.
Her commitment to her home country brought her back to Haiti in 2009 to make a difference in the serious health care needs of that Caribbean nation. She joined the GHESKIO Centers in downtown Port-au-Prince where she provides clinical care to underserved children infected or affected by HIV/AIDS and other related infections. She is currently the Chief of Pediatrics at GHESKIO and oversees the clinical care of over 1,000 children followed there for HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis. Her particular interests are in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV especially in the context of breast-feeding and improving the diagnosis of TB in children (published in Journal of Infectious Diseases). She also heads the ongoing pediatric research protocols at GHESKIO focusing on pneumonia in children under five and the effect of HIV in mothers’ breast milk on the gut microflora and immune development of their exposed infants.
She was the face of Haitian health care after the devastating earthquake in 2010 when she worked with the US Health and Human Services in providing emergency medical care to over 3,000 trauma victims from the rubble she while continuing to provide life-saving antiretroviral (ARV) and anti-TB drugs to her patients to avoid drug resistance and clinical deterioration (published as New England Journal of Medicine dispatch from the field). She was interviewed by several news organizations while trying to help reunite a little boy who had been separated from his mother when brought to the GHESKIO-HHS field hospital in critical condition. A below-knee amputation had to be done to save his life but Vanessa was instrumental in insuring he was not sent to an orphanage afterwards but fought tirelessly for 2 months to have mother and child reunited despite bureaucratic hurdles (Wall St. Journal article, CNN).
She is a key player in the just-launched campaign against the severe ongoing cholera epidemic in Haiti, a new disease likely introduced by U.N. peacekeepers after the earthquake. She is coordinating the pilot 2 dose-vaccination campaign of 50,000 people in urban slums of Port Au Prince to help diminish the impact on these vulnerable and high risk communities until longer term sanitation solutions can be brought.
She is active in training others. She routinely gives courses in management of HIV and TB in children to rotating physicians and nurses at the GHESKIO training unit; teaches courses as part of specialized nurse practitioner program; and supervises/teaches students and residents who intern at GHESKIO. She is currently working on establishing a curriculum/program for continuing medical education courses for GHESKIO medical personnel in collaboration with Dartmouth University.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703795004575087683673968688.html#articleTabs%3Darticle
http://www.heralddeparis.com/haitians-under-u-s-treatment-are-often-separated-from-families/72483
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2010/02/25/have-you-seen-my-son/?hpt=ac_mid
Her advice to Biology Freshman (F2011 Biology freshman seminar – Skype call): - “I would challenge them as they begin on their roads to building successful careers, to strive towards achieving significance and not only success. So that, whatever they accomplish, it will bring good to others around them also. Success is great, but helping others along the way makes it even more rewarding.”