Impressions-Jan Anderson

Position: General Registered Nurse — Selea, Sudan
School: Graduate of McMaster University BScN
Previous MSF Project: Bangladesh 2005 — Malaria/primary health program
Previous Nursing experience: Canadian North — Moosonee, Attawapiskat
Currently working: St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto
Super Powers (with coffee): Endurance, creativity, teamwork, wise cracks, BS-ing
Weaknesses: Spelling, cooking, romance, organization, tidiness, tactfulness
Side Kick: TBA
Nemesis: none — I don’t believe in evil people, just bad behaviour.

Dr Ann Duggan is a family physician originally from St. John’s Nfld. now living in Ottawa. She has done 16 missions with MSF from 1993 to 2000, many of these with the MSF Emergency Team based in Amsterdam. From 2001-2004 she was on the board of MSF Canada. Most of her missions were as Medical Coordinator in conflict or outbreak situations. Her most memorable country worked in was Sierra Leone, though she has also worked in Liberia, Rwanda, DRC, Sudan, El Salvador, Azerbaijan, Albania, Macedonia, and Indonesia. Now all that conflict management experience is put to good use raising her four year old daughter :-)

Dr. Susie Tector is originally from the Eastern Townships of Quebec, and currently lives in Ottawa.  She has just returned from 4 months in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where she was Medical Coordinator for the country.  This was her fifth mission with MSF, having previously worked as a medical doctor in Darfur, Chad, Pakistan, and in the DRC.  In her work with MSF, she has experienced many different settings, including refugee camps, isolated villages, and cholera epidemics in both rural and urban environments.  When in Canada she works as an Emergency Room physician at the Montfort Hospital in Ottawa.

Virginia (Ginny) Morrison has completed four assignments with MSF, most recently in 2008 in Chad near the border with Darfur, where she was Field Coordinator for a hospital providing health care to over 27,000 IDPs. Her previous assignment, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was also in an IDP camp. Her first two assignments were Angola; in 2005, she responded to an outbreak of the Marburg virus, a highly contagious relative of the ebola virus, and in 2004 she helped establish a program to treat sleeping sickness, or human African trypanosomiasis (HAT).  Ms. Morrison lives and works near Boston. She holds a BA in Political Science from Colby College, a MSc in Nursing from Yale, and completed Family Nurse Practitioner certification at the University of Michigan. She hopes that her new 3 month old daughter Aliya likes to work with MSF as much as her mother!

I am a registered nurse. I work in an ER, and as a flight nurse. I was born in Cuba, and raised in the US.

This is my first mission with MSF. I was the expat supervisor in Kitchanga, DRC for Posts De Sante in two IDP camps, a CTC, and the Relais Communitaire. Previous to MSF I volunteered with another NGO and worked in Iraq twice, Pakistan, Uganda, and Mexico.

The picture shows me and my best friend in Congo, Placide Iyangika, he was the national staff supervisor for two postes de sante. Placide was shot and killed the day after I left Congo. He was a great man, and this should remind all of us of the context in which we work.

I am a Psychologist, specialised in post-traumatic stress management. I have worked with MSF since 1997, as a mental health consultant for returning volunteers and then in the field as a Mental Health Officer since the Kosovo crisis. I have just returned from a three month mission in Haiti. In between, I have worked in conflict areas such as Kashmir, Iraq, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Afghanistan and in emergency situations and natural catastrophes such as earthquakes in Haiti and Gujarat and post-tsunami in Aceh, Indonesia. I was born in Québec city and live in the Outaouais region.

It is a privilege and honour to work with dedicated teams who offer a hand to people in vulnerable situations. What a delight to share and learn from people, different cultures. To relax after a mission, I love to play with kids and scuba dive

I am originally from the UK, but have been living in Canada for the last two years. I have been working as a nurse for MSF on and off since 2004. In total I have done 7 missions with MSF.  Each mission/country that I have worked in with MSF has offered me different challenges and surprises and I’ve love it!

I’m a nurse from Shawinigan, Quebec and I have 13 MSF missions in my pocket - the first one in Hagadera Somali’s Refugee Camp in 1994 and the last one in 2009 in Nord Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

I’ve been to Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Burundi, Uganda, Congo-Brazzaville, and Katanga (DRC). All my missions were in conflict areas, so I like to joke and I see life as something to enjoy every second of.

I am a Belgian nurse, and first worked for Médecins du Monde in Africa, later working in Japan and China. I first worked for MSF in refugee camps in Hong Kong, then in Guatemala, Cameroon, and East Congo. In the meantime, I migrated to West Australia where I now live a quiet life in the countryside. I participated last year in this event in Melbourne and Adelaide. It was very “eye opening” for a lot of Australians living in a hostile political climate towards refugees. I am very honoured to share this experience with Canadians interested in the plight of refugees.