Last Friday, the first group of the NYU Langone Medical Center Haitian Effort and Relief Team (NYULMC

Fritz Francois, MD

HEART) landed in Port-au-Prince to assist with the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake. Surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, and other staff members will be providing surgical services at the Haitian capital’s General Hospital. Dr. Fritz Francois, an Assistant Dean at NYU born and raised in Port-au-Prince, is blogging about the group’s experience on the HEART website.

Dr. Francois frequently describes the environment the team has had to work with and a few of the procedures they have managed, including a childbirth with a severely injured mother. He also recounts an inspiring story of helping a man find his wife — “the nice one” at least — at the hospital, and even details a visit from Sanjay Gupta, MD, who is also saving lives on national television. According to their press release, the Medical Center is currently working on sending another team to Port-au-Prince later this week. Here on campus, a university-wide vigil for Haitian victims will be held tomorrow in Gould Plaza at the exact two-week anniversary of the earthquake.

Fritz Francois, M.D.,M.Sc. earned a B.A. with commencement speaker honors from New York University. He completed his medical degree at the NYU School of Medicine, where he stayed for internship, residency, chief residency, and gastroenterology fellowship. While on faculty Dr Francois earned a Masters of Science degree in Clinical Investigation. As a molecular epidemiologist, his research interests include esophageal disease, H. pylori, and colorectal cancer screening in minority populations. Dr. Francois is the recipient of several national grants including an NIH career development award, a Robert Wood Foundation Clinical Investigator Award and the American College of Gastroenterology Clinical Research Award. His work has been presented nationally and he has received many honors including two American Society for GI Endoscopy Diversity Minority Research award. In the spring of 2007 he was named as an international emerging leader in gastroenterology. He is also the Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs and Diversity at NYU.