For some, getting on an airplane is less of a convenience and more like a terrifying experience.

Which is exactly why a mortgage broker, a psychologist, and a well-known airline have joined forces to offer an eight-week course at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport that aims to conquer many travelers’ fear of flying.

Mark Churchill, 37, the course’s creator, is basing the course on his own experience.

“It was a fear of not being able to breathe,” Churchill said.

Because of his flying phobia, Churchill went to see several therapists, all of which proved unhelpful until he met a Delray psychologist, Dr. Caryn Goldberg.

“With reading, homework, breathing and relaxation techniques we made progress,” he said.

The new fear of flying program begins its eight weeks of sessions on Feb. 16.

Goldberg will be directing some of the sessions, and accompanying the graduates on a “graduation flight” to Orlando. Southwest Airlines has agreed to provide the meeting room, the planes, and an occasional speaker.

“The way people think affects the way they behave,” Goldberg said. “And that affects the way they feel about things. If we can get them to shift their thinking, they can begin to feel differently.”

For information about the fear of flying program, visit www.meetup.com/Overcome-your-Fear-of-Flying.

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So much for the underwater tourist mecca Lauderdale-by-the-Sea was hoping for.

In a move that town officials hoped would enhance its appeal as a tourist destination for scuba divers, snorkelers and marine enthusiasts, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea suffered a setback when it failed to nab a much-hoped-for state grant to create an underwater marine park just off its shores.

The proposed underwater park — situated about 300 feet from shore — would stretch from Anglin's Pier at Commercial Boulevard south to Palm Avenue. At about 600 feet wide, the park would be marked by buoys.

While the park was not chosen to be funded by the state this year, town officials are expected to reapply again next year, according to the town’s official newsletter, Town Topics.

The park’s cost is estimated to be at least $40,000, half of which would be paid for by the town. The other half would come from a Coastal Partnership Initiative grant. The town, which does not have lifeguards, was working to set up a dive rescue team. Currently, the Volunteer Fire Department has a beach patrol and numbered poles with attached life rings along the beach.

The initial motion to apply for the grant was passed in October, after the nonprofit group Cry of the Water introduced the proposal at a Town Commission meeting.

Cry of the Water, which has partnered with the town on the marine park project, planned to have meetings for public input and form a group of citizens that would create a management plan for the park.

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As devastation from the earthquake in Haiti spread, Dr. Mitchell Schuster knew how quickly he needed to act. Within 48 hours, Schuster and a team of medical students and doctors gathered nearly 2,000 supplies, including IV bags, tubing and 160 doses of tetanus shots from Boca Raton Community Hospital.

For 10 days last month, Schuster and his team traveled around Haiti providing medical help wherever it was needed. Beginning their days before sunrise, members of the group would head to University General Hospital in Port-au-Prince, bandaging wounds, prepping victims for surgery and offering a comforting word or embrace.

“It was a house of carnage when we arrived,” said Schuster, a Fort Lauderdale resident. “Most did not have family with them. There were many unsupervised children, presumably orphaned. Nobody was unscathed.”

The team, which included Schuster’s 24-year-old daughter Jessica, constructed tents outside the hospital for all medical care except surgery. There were fears that aftershocks would collapse the building.

“We did whatever we could with the limited number of resources we had,” said Ashok Khatri, 33, a member of Schuster’s team.

The team worked as long as daylight was available. Without working lights, there were safety concerns. Guns sounded in the night, and people with gunshot wounds would appear at the hospital the following day. Cars blocked roads where people slept in the street.

“I’m not sure our society in America could tolerate what they are going through," Schuster said. “There was far more calm than unrest. The people of Haiti have been getting bad press for years.”

But this was not Schuster’s first venture into the world of humanitarian disaster relief. He has been volunteering for decades, providing medical care during disasters in the Philippines, Somalia and the 2004 tsunami in Thailand. In 2007, Schuster created the Bicol Clinic Foundation to offer rapid-response medical care and supplies to foreign disaster areas.

Schuster plans, with the Bicol Clinic Foundation, to eventually build an eco-friendly Montessori school to help rebuild Haiti’s educational system.

The foundation is now collecting crutches, walkers, wheelchairs, canes and prosthetic devices for Haitian earthquake victims who lost limbs or are immobile. So far, it has raised $40,000 for supplies. Schuster said he hopes to return to Haiti by March to deliver them.

For ways to help the earthquake victims in Haiti, visit Fort Lauderdale's "Haiti Relief" site here.

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