Angels of Milot

Father-son UF College of Medicine alumni are catching national attention for their work in Haiti.

Dr. John Lovejoy Jr., MD ’66, (right) and his son, John Lovejoy III, MD ’01, on a recent trip to Haiti.

Dr. John Lovejoy Jr., MD ’66, (right) and his son, John Lovejoy III, MD ’01, on a recent trip to Haiti.

UF College of Medicine alumni, John Lovejoy Jr., MD ’66, and his son, John Lovejoy III, MD ’01, are catching national attention for their work in Haiti.

The two are featured in a documentary “Angels of Milot” that traces their work in the northern mountains of Haiti just after the devastating earthquake that hit in January 2010. Lovejoy Jr., 72, is a retired orthopaedic surgeon from Jacksonville, and his son practices orthopaedic surgery at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. His daughter, Ellen, is the filmmaker.

Lovejoy Jr. has been going to Haiti for 30 years with the CRUDEM Foundation. He often has his son join him on trips to Hôpital Sacré Coeur, where they have established a prosthesis lab. But, as the documentary shows, this trip was different. The documentary, which has aired on PBS stations throughout Florida, highlights their quick response to the disaster.

With donations from the Jacksonville community, the Lovejoys converted a trailer of a semi truck into a fully equipped prosthesis lab and had it shipped to Haiti, where they made prostheses for Haitian amputees. Their goal is to give Haitian doctors the tools and training to run the lab on their own.

“I called as soon as I heard about the earthquake and found out that our hospital was intact,” said the elder Lovejoy. “We began to organize a team and made it to Haiti four days later.”

The father-son team helped convert the 73-bed hospital into a 550-bed hospital by putting up tents.

“The first week we saw 180 patients. When we went back a couple weeks later, we saw 150 more,” said Lovejoy Jr.

He hopes the documentary will remind people of Haiti’s continued need for support.