LONDON LAYOVER

My son Martin Asplund MD and myself Mark W Asplund MD FACS are embarking on what we hope is an opportunity of a lifetime. Martin starts his surgical internship June 22 at York Hospital in York, Pa.  Mark is board certified surgeon in general and vascular surgery with fellowship training at the University of Pennsylvania in transplant. They are to fly from Central Wisconsin to Chicago to New Jersey then to Tel Aviv (Israel)….

Our first friendly face. Ayman picked us up from the airport in Tel Aviv and drove us to our hotel in Nablus.

However it didn’t take long for Murphy’s law to rear its ugly head. We are 6 hours delayed and are going from Chicago to London Heathrow airport then to Tel Aviv. I hope this isn’t a bad omen but Marty and I a weathering it well, with a movie, glass of Spanish wine and then a nap. We will arrive in Tel Aviv at 1040 PM so I suspect get a hotel there and taxi to Nalbus, West Bank the next morningwhere we will be working at a regional surgical hospital. Nablus is an ancient city the name Nablus being Arabic derivation from the Greek Neopolis which was built on or near the same ground of the ancieny sity of Sechem 9000 years ago. It is a beautiful area situated in a valley between two mountains, Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal. It has much history and is noted for very fine olive oil and a special soap. I hope to describe further the hospital and the region when we arrive as it premature.

….This trip is organized through the Palestinian Children’s relief Fund an American NGO centered in Kent, OH. Marty found them through a site of volunteering in the American College of Surgeons. They have been very helpful and especially our contact person Suhail Flaifl. Thank you to him. I’m sure since this is a nonprofit organization with limited funding if anyone reading this during the next 2 weeks are so moved they would gladly take donations at the PCRF website.

http://pcrf.net

Our goals in this trip is help the Palestinians with surgical care they might not be able to get, teach local physicians and trainees as much as we can, and then for us to learn the complicated relationships between politics, religions, social customs and see how these affect these conflict.  We are anxious to here from the Palestinians themselves about the controversies surrounding this volatile area. We hope to be primarily listeners

 

There will be a short day to see East Jerusalem as a tourist, or of Bethlehem.