Former LSF Client Flies to

Haiti to Give Medical Aid

Career Laddering Graduate Licensed as Doctor Here

By Thomas L. Weitzel

LSF Communications

29 January 2010

A former client of Lutheran Services Florida and graduate of LSF's Career Laddering program has taken a flight to Haiti to provide medical assistance following that country's earthquake earlier this month.

Dr. Pierre Andre Frantz Ovide flew to his former home and hospital where he practiced in Deschapelles, Haiti to serve there for ten days as part of a team of three doctors, according to an email received from him on Jan. 21 by LSF Career Laddering Counselor William Peters.

"There are many, many patients from the earthquake devastation," wrote Ovide in his email.  "We're trying our best, but it will take us some days to [help] everyone."

Ovide and his wife Daniellea came to Florida with their two children early in 2006.  Later that year, Ovide entered LSF's Career Laddering program, which assists those who had been professionals in their former country to enter the same field in the United States.  Ovide had been a general surgeon in Haiti.  His wife had also been a doctor.

Dr. Ovide passed his United States Medical Licensing Exam a year later, in 2007, and in 2009 moved from Florida to Chicago, Illinois to begin a residency program in pediatrics at the University of Illinois.

"He was our doctor with the most advanced standing upon entering the Career Laddering program," said Peters above Dr. Ovide.  "We just assisted him to complete his certification and application process along the way."

Peters stated that LSF had also helped Ovide's wife Daniellea in the Career Laddering program, but "due to taking care of her two daughters, and keeping a full time job, she had not yet started the process of returning to her former profession as her husband had," said Peters.

After the Haiti earthquake struck on Jan. 12, Peters contacted his former client, knowing of his Haitian roots, informing him of a "call for doctors" and potential air travel to Haiti.

"I discovered he was already down there," said Peters, who immediately wrote back saying, "You are AWESOME, my friend!  Thank you for being in Haiti!  We're there in spirit with you!"

To read more about LSF's Career Laddering program, click here.

 L  U  T  H  E  R  A  N         S  E  R  V  I  C  E  S          F  L  O  R  I  D  A