September 6, 2005

Dear Colleagues:

We wish to extend our profound thanks to all of those from every part of Johns Hopkins Medicine who responded with such dedication and willingness to the call for assistance from the overwhelmed, hurricane-battered medical community in the Gulf Coast region. More than 500 of you promptly volunteered to go to the aid of those in need in this devastated area. And each of you who volunteered had lined up colleagues willing to shoulder the burden of your work while you’re away.

Our deepest thanks, appreciation and admiration to Gabor Kelen, M.D., and all of those in Hopkins’ Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response (CEPAR), who worked nonstop over the long weekend with administrators from every JHM entity to assemble a team of more than 100 medical personnel to answer the latest call for aid from the federal government. This was in addition to organizing a dozen physicians and nurses who left Monday in response to a request from the State of Louisiana to the State of Maryland.

The National Institutes of Health’s request to delay implementation of the Hopkins team’s deployment in no way diminishes this extraordinary demonstration of our ability to muster our forces rapidly and effectively. Thanks to you, Hopkins Medicine now is poised even more to alleviate the suffering of those in devastated regions of our country.

Edward D. Miller, M.D.

Ronald R. Peterson