Dr. Alix Charles has plenty of patients he serves both at his home office and abroad. He visited Haiti for a week in early October to provide medical services to more than 2,000 Haitians.

Charles, a board certified dermatologist who operates a practice in Hinsdale as part of the DuPage Medical Group, travels twice a year to the homeland of his parents to help those in need.

"We worked in a very underserved area of Haiti in a town called Cap-Haitian on the northern coast of Haiti,” Charles said.

Charles, who this past summer provided free skin cancer screenings at the Hinsdale Community Swimming Pool, said he routinely saw 70 patients daily in Haiti.

“The Concerned Haitian American of Illinois (CHAI) provides health care and education year round there, but once a year they put together an ‘A-Team’ of doctors in a variety of specialties to administer there,” Charles said. “It is very satisfying to go there and no you are making a difference in the lives of people less fortunate than you.”

“There are no Walgreens or CVS pharmacies there, and in some cases people don’t have simple medications like aspirin or Ibuprofen,” he added,

The two annual trips allow Charles to reconnect with his ancestral roots as well.

“My father was a doctor there and my mother a nurse, and they had to immigrate to the United States in the 1960s to escape the regime of (Francois “Papa Doc”) Duvalier,” Charles said.

Charles plans to go to Haiti in January as part of a contingent that educates doctors, nurses and medical students in best practices at the National University Medical School in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital.

Notable
• Vice-president, Chicago Dermatological Society
• Speaks four languages — English, Spanish, French and Haitian Creole
• 2007 “Members Making a Difference” Award Winner, American Academy of Dermatology

& quotable
“Going to Haiti grounds you, makes you feel very fortunate for what you have here in America,” Charles said. “We tend to take for granted simple things like clean, fresh water”

Philosophy
“The best interest of the patient is the only interest to be considered. William Mayo, founder of Mayo Clinic, said that, and I adhere to it.”

Favorites
MEAL My wife’s cooking, particularly Thai and Vietnamese dishes
HOBBIES Reading, dining out, and bicycling along Lake Michigan’s lakefront
VACATION SPOTS Tahiti, and any tropical island
ADVICE TO PATIENTS Become more aware of your skin, regularly inspect for lumps and bumps, any changes in skin conditions