From The East African Newspaper August 15-21, 2011
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Friday, August 19, 2011
Kampala Calling
After an unplanned, frustratingly exhausting 30 hour tour of Africa courtesy of Egypt Air which included such notorious airports as Cairo, Dar es Salaam, Kilimanjaro and yes, eventually Entebbe I am now back in Uganda! I had the most surreal experience during my 5 hour tour of the Dar es Salaam airport. Having come through Madrid in Europe, many of my fellow diverted continent-touring comrades were from Spain. So when we were grumbling and groaning about our predicament, naturally, I spoke Spanish, however, when we were given our breakfast coupons (yeah for chips and chicken as the only option for breakfast at 5am!) I ended up sitting with a lovely Tanzanian bloke who works as a lawyer at the Arusha Human Rights Tribunal who had also come from Madrid, so naturally, I switched to Kiswahili….much to the confusion of my newly acquired buddies from Barcelona who hadn’t been able to place my Spanish accent to start with. Surreal. I was post-call equivalent as it was which probably heightened the dream-like nature of the event.
I got to the guesthouse from the airport at 3pm, showered and dropped by the office to check in with our research program assistant. Our to do list was long and I just wanted to pop by, say hi and outline our plan of attack. I found not the woman I had seen in January, no, alas, there was a very very pregnant woman sitting at the desk….very. The baby squirmed visibly across the tautness of her belly beneath her clothes. Although she was expecting me, she looked rather….well, sheepish I suppose. My mzungu self blew up inside of me, why on EARTH would this not be something you would mention to the research program so they could make some adjustments?! But FORTUNATELY, the lovely culturally sensitive, accepting inner being took over, congratulated her exhuberantly and enveloped her sheepishness in a hug. I need to zen out and get with the African way of doing things. When I asked how the pregnancy was going she said “Sheona, why do I feel these contractions every 20 minutes, I don’t understand?” She’s due in three days…life happens, awesome, complicated, real.
As I sit writing this the clatter of the monkeys scurrying mischievously across the tin roof startles me occasionally. I’m staying at the Mulago Hospital guesthouse for a few days before moving into my apartment. The guesthouse consists of two, not quite rustic, not quite luxurious house-like structures set on the slope of Mulago hill surrounded by deep green grass scattered with brilliant purple jacaranda blossoms fallen from the trees and the occasional sharply textured globular Jack fruit, cracked and oozing its sweet white nectar onto the surrounding celebrating ants. In addition to the resident monkeys there are a few large Ibis who wander, searching for bugs in the grass with their long smooth beaks. I’m exhausted, overwhelmed by both the logistics of research and the epi and stats MPH courses that I’m starting. But I’m also overwhelmed by gratefulness, for the opportunity to be here, the thrill of the daily realities of life in Uganda and excitement for the next phase of the project. Life is crazy, but good.
I got to the guesthouse from the airport at 3pm, showered and dropped by the office to check in with our research program assistant. Our to do list was long and I just wanted to pop by, say hi and outline our plan of attack. I found not the woman I had seen in January, no, alas, there was a very very pregnant woman sitting at the desk….very. The baby squirmed visibly across the tautness of her belly beneath her clothes. Although she was expecting me, she looked rather….well, sheepish I suppose. My mzungu self blew up inside of me, why on EARTH would this not be something you would mention to the research program so they could make some adjustments?! But FORTUNATELY, the lovely culturally sensitive, accepting inner being took over, congratulated her exhuberantly and enveloped her sheepishness in a hug. I need to zen out and get with the African way of doing things. When I asked how the pregnancy was going she said “Sheona, why do I feel these contractions every 20 minutes, I don’t understand?” She’s due in three days…life happens, awesome, complicated, real.
As I sit writing this the clatter of the monkeys scurrying mischievously across the tin roof startles me occasionally. I’m staying at the Mulago Hospital guesthouse for a few days before moving into my apartment. The guesthouse consists of two, not quite rustic, not quite luxurious house-like structures set on the slope of Mulago hill surrounded by deep green grass scattered with brilliant purple jacaranda blossoms fallen from the trees and the occasional sharply textured globular Jack fruit, cracked and oozing its sweet white nectar onto the surrounding celebrating ants. In addition to the resident monkeys there are a few large Ibis who wander, searching for bugs in the grass with their long smooth beaks. I’m exhausted, overwhelmed by both the logistics of research and the epi and stats MPH courses that I’m starting. But I’m also overwhelmed by gratefulness, for the opportunity to be here, the thrill of the daily realities of life in Uganda and excitement for the next phase of the project. Life is crazy, but good.
Monday, August 1, 2011
MIA for a Year
There was an intense yet fascinating two week at Hopkins. I’m taking a part-time Master’s of Public Health that will allow me to spend the majority of the year between Uganda and Ecuador working on a cervical cancer research project. The John Hopkins School of Public Health turned 95 years old this year. A world-revered institution that churns out research at an incredible rate and who’s motto is (seriously folks) “promoting health, saving lives….millions at a time.” I can’t take them seriously. The Hopkins medical center is a state of the art institute of modern medicine situated splat in the middle of a ghetto. They shuttle us back and forth from the residence to the medical campus for safety reasons. Looking out the smudged window of the bus I see row after row of brick houses with boarded windows. Is it not a deep irony that this desperately poor and crime ridden community, somewhat of a public health disaster, surrounds one of the world’s leading school’s of public health? With disproportionately high rates of HIV in the African American population that lives there and statistics that show if you are an African American man you will die 30 years before your Caucasian counterpart it makes me suspicious of the program I’ve just signed on for.
Regardless of all the irony and healthy ego of the institution, I am awed by my classmates. I become quick friends with Sara, a young soft-spoken Southeast Asian pediatric ICU physician from Stanford who loves climbing and road biking and has set up a peds ICU in Kathmandu. One of my small group members was an adviser on the Bush administration’s bioethics committee, needless to say he had to find a new job when Obama came in and is now a health policy analyst at the NIH (National Institute for Health). The list goes on, but I quickly learn that those who surround me are without a doubt the biggest resource I have.
I returned to Vancouver for a frantic two weeks of baby catching which completed the requirements for my Baby Mill Chief rotation! Although unlike gyne oncology, it was far from passing with flying colours, I met expectations. I’ll take that and run. I pray that I never eat my words in the future but if I EVER sign up to work at the Baby Mill when I’m done residency someone please slap me, churning out babies at that pace isn’t good for my soul. July 1st was my last day of call at the Mill. A few of my favourite nurses took me out on the weekend and said the loveliest of things about how much they liked working with me, they can’t possibly have any idea how much it meant to hear that.
And now for a year that will beat to a different drum, I won’t hear the rhythmic thumping of the fetal heart Doppler, the reassuring snapping of sterile gloves on my hands or the smoothness of a scalpel sliding through skin. I’m excited, ungrounded and apprehensive all at once. Uganda, Ecuador, Egypt, Spain…oh yeah, and Baltimore, here I come.
Regardless of all the irony and healthy ego of the institution, I am awed by my classmates. I become quick friends with Sara, a young soft-spoken Southeast Asian pediatric ICU physician from Stanford who loves climbing and road biking and has set up a peds ICU in Kathmandu. One of my small group members was an adviser on the Bush administration’s bioethics committee, needless to say he had to find a new job when Obama came in and is now a health policy analyst at the NIH (National Institute for Health). The list goes on, but I quickly learn that those who surround me are without a doubt the biggest resource I have.
I returned to Vancouver for a frantic two weeks of baby catching which completed the requirements for my Baby Mill Chief rotation! Although unlike gyne oncology, it was far from passing with flying colours, I met expectations. I’ll take that and run. I pray that I never eat my words in the future but if I EVER sign up to work at the Baby Mill when I’m done residency someone please slap me, churning out babies at that pace isn’t good for my soul. July 1st was my last day of call at the Mill. A few of my favourite nurses took me out on the weekend and said the loveliest of things about how much they liked working with me, they can’t possibly have any idea how much it meant to hear that.
And now for a year that will beat to a different drum, I won’t hear the rhythmic thumping of the fetal heart Doppler, the reassuring snapping of sterile gloves on my hands or the smoothness of a scalpel sliding through skin. I’m excited, ungrounded and apprehensive all at once. Uganda, Ecuador, Egypt, Spain…oh yeah, and Baltimore, here I come.
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