An open letter to my patients and friends:

Hurricane Katrina is a disaster for all of us, and its impact is still worsening each day. Our beautiful and charmed city is flooded, looted, and deserted. Many of our neighbors and much of the infrastructure of the city have moved away; some of them will not return. Some have died, and hundreds of thousands have lost their homes and all of their possessions. My staff and I are very lucky: our homes and our beautiful office on St. Charles Avenue have escaped the flooding and suffered only wind and tree damage. Our homes are repairable and we are grateful.

The press has painted a picture of New Orleans that will cause tourists to not want to venture here, for at least a while. Under the very best scenario, it will take years to re-build New Orleans and one would hope that its essential character would survive despite immense physical changes. In the worse scenario, New Orleans will struggle, shrink, and waste (or wash) away. And most likely, the future will be between these extremes: a new New Orleans, not quite as Big or as Easy, but our home.

I am committed to staying, practicing, and living in New Orleans as long as I can. If there are patients to treat, children to reconstruct, or people in need, I'll be there. I pledge my efforts and resources to re-constructing a new New Orleans. Like a complex facial reconstruction after an accident, it may not be perfect or beautiful, but is much, much better than what was there.

Michael Moses MD
Monday, Sepember 12, 2005

OUR PRACTICE

We intend to return to our practice as soon as possible. For now, we have not been allowed back into the city to get medical records, supplies or our computers. We have no mechanism to contact our patients.

We will try to set up a temporary practice location until Hedgewood and Childrens' Hospital can re-open. We will update this web site with that information as soon as arrangements have been made.

In the meantime, you can try to contact us on our cell phones, or via e-mail, though both of these modalities have had very spotty coverage and significant outages:

Dr. Moses:
cell 504-669-8558
e-mail: drmichaelmoses@drmoses.com

Peggy:
cell 504-669-8560
e-mail: peggy@drmoses.com

Jean
e-mail: jean@drmoses.com

We will update this site with additional contact information as it becomes available.

If you have a medical emergency, go to your local emergency room and/or contact a board certified plastic surgeon wherever you are.