Courtney Howard hails from the mist and moss of North Vancouver and has spent the last few years hospital-hopping around Canada, working in ERs in BC, Ontario, Quebec and way, way up there in the Northwest Territories. She is a board member of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and has recently completed a trial called FLOW (Finding Lasting Options for Women), which compared tampons to a reusable menstrual cup.  She is proud to be academically certified both to Dance (SFU:BSc (KIN) and (FPA: Dance) and to practice Family and Emergency Medicine (UBC-CCFP, McGill-CCFP-EM).

The inheritance of a complete lack of a sense of direction from her father, and a love of food from her mother means that she can frequently be found wandering, lost but well-equipped with a backpack full of cheese and melty chocolate. Such travels have taken her to hospitals in the foothills of the Himalayas and to HIV centers in Nairobi’s slums.  She will be working at the CNTH (Centre Nutritionnel Thérapeutique Hospitalière), the Intensive Care Unit of the Balbala Slum Malnutrition Project in Djibouti City, which serves Ethiopian and Somalian refugees as well as local kids.  She is hoping that kind people will excuse her first attempt to function full-time in French.

Home is where her husband Darcy is, currently Ottawa, where they both hang out with the kiddos at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario.  This is her first posting with MSF and she thinks Mom would be happy the focus is on food.

In this blog, Courtney writes from the Intensive Care Unit of the Balbala Slum Malnutrition Project in Djibouti City, which serves Ethiopian and Somalian refugees as well as local kids. She is hoping that kind people will excuse her first attempt to function full-time in French.