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Continuing Promise_FNL with art 12/22/10 6:12 PM Page 11 Patients wait in line for the Continuing Promise clinic in Colombia. This page from top: RNs Jane Ernstthal, Mandi Howard, Cherie Thurner, and Brooke Casipit volunteered in Haiti and Colombia; children at a clinic in Guatemala members immediately after the Haiti earthquake aboard the U.S.S. Comfort, a U.S. Navy hospital ship, the Department of Defense invited RNRN to send 24 nurses to volunteer with Continuing Promise, an annual mission it undertakes to countries around the world during which teams provide medical care, engineering and construction work, and veterinary care. While not technically responding to disasters, the Continuing Promise mission offers DECEMBER 2010 invaluable training so that nurses will be prepared when they are needed. "We have learned from our experience in Hurricane Katrina that the kind of skills needed in the weeks and months following a disaster are nursing skills," said Bonnie Castillo, RN, director of RNRN. "The kind of care that's needed is everyday care, and things are exacerbated by the lack of medication and basic first aid. Wounds fester and spread. Something that was preventable ends up a life-threatening situation. Nurses are the heart of a long-term recovery effort." During this year's mission, six groups of RNRN volunteers from across the country worked off the U.S.S. Iwo Jima, a Navy amphibious ship, and traveled to Haiti, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Guyana, Nicaragua, Panama, and Surinam. Some groups of RNs committed to a four-week stint, and others served almost two weeks. Nurse volunteers usually rotated through three-day routines: one day working in the Iwo Jima's post-anesthesia and surgical unit, another day setting up and running medical clinics on land, and finally a day to rest, do personal tasks like laundry, and help military nurses and personnel with patient care paperwork. But depending on their areas of expertise, volunteers also worked on a variety of projects, such as establishing pre- and post-natal W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G N AT I O N A L N U R S E 11