Namaste!
Well we survived the flight and the more importantly the car ride from the airport to the hospital! You think Chicagoans are crazy drivers? Yesterday was primarily spent traveling since we had a 7hr car ride from the airport to our village. We arrived at the hospital nearly 32 hrs ago, however, our baggage still remains in Turkey! They continually tell us it will arrive tomorrow, tomorrow... so tomorrow we will see!
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The accommodations are simple but certainly serve our needs well. Our 'apartments' consist of 2 twin beds with a small nightstand, two chairs with end table, a bathroom with shower and an additional sink in the room. Outside of our apt door is an open common balcony that spans the length of the 3rd floor, with ceiling fans and a small table for us to gather at in the evening.
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Today was much different than yesterday. The pace did a 180 degree turn. We woke up at around 6:30 (because of the jet lag) and ate breakfast.
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We are provided 3 meals a day, with every meal as wonderful as the last. Our lunch and dinner consist of rice, a hot vegetable dish, a side vegetable salad (i.e. finely chopped beets with cabbage, chopped cucumber with cilantro, onion with tomato), a curry 'soup' and of course chapiti (tortilla like bread).
Being here, we are trying our best to fit in with the people. They speak mostly Marathi (Maratee) so we have been trying to pick up a few words each day. We were given a list today with a few common phrases translated from English to Marthi. This morning’s interaction with the cook at breakfast went something like this:
Jeremy: "What is this dish called?"
Mori: "Ukma"
Jeremy: "Ok, and what is this one?"
Mori: "Ah... omelet"
The rest of us: laughing
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After breakfast we met with the hospital medical director, Dr. Patil, an extremely kind, helpful and patient woman. She introduced us to Dr. Rishikash, who is the head of the public health department, and he showed us around for the rest of the day. The pace of the hospital is much different than a traditional US hospital - much slower. We took all day to walk around the hospital and the rest of the campus.
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The hospital consists of a "casualty room" which is a one room emergency department, a MICU made up of 10 beds, a SICU of about 10 beds, male and female medical wards, a pediatric ward, NICU, maternity ward, 3 operating theatres (ORs), and some outpatient clinics including dental. We will get to spend some time in each department. In addition we will have the opportunity to take part in travel clinics that go out to surrounding villages on a daily basis to run screening for breast, cervical and oral cancers.
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A little history of the hospital: It was founded by Mr. Walawalker (hence the B.K.L. Walawalker name). The story goes that he was first off a relatively poor businessman who was called upon by his guru to drop what he was doing and become a carpenter. He complied, and eventually found great wealth in the construction business. Due to the successful guidance of his guru, Mr. Walawalker felt the need to pay him back. Thus he started this hospital. The B.K.L. in the name stand for the gurus that guided him. Mr. Walawalker gave all of his money to this hospital which is the primary fincancial support. He is no longer alive today, but his son is and still continues to support the hospital.
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The campus includes the main hospital, a cancer research center, housing for the hospital staff, a nursing college, a primary, secondary and junior college for the children, a small restaurant and very small convenient store. Future plans include building a palliative care housing unit for cancer patients. They are also at the beginning stages of building an enormous sports complex which will include an olympic sized track, cricket field, swimming pool and much more. The plans include building this complex in order to teach the children at a young age to become professional sports players.
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Our day also included a tour of the schools and college. We will be spending time there as well interacting with the students. They are utilizing us not only as students, but to help them learn as well. (pressure’s on!) We are scheduled to do about 2 presentations a week to either a panel of doctors, nurses, or students. Topics we may talk about include: basic hand hygiene, hospital acquired infections, What a PA is, etc. As we have been running through our game-plans for those, we have been finding it extremely difficult to figure out how to present what we know about these topics, because they are in need of technical and cost effective (aka. no cost) solutions. It is easy for us to say “wash your hands before and after every encounter” and “wear gloves with every patient” but these are not so simple to implement here. Sinks are actually a rarity around the hospital. You can also forget about hand sanitizer or sanitizing wipes to clean equipment. It requires a whole new way of thinking and approach to these issues.
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We were also asked to present to Dr. Rishikash a list of objectives that we would like to accomplish while we are here. We made a list including surgeries and procedures we are able to do and would like more practice in. It is a good thing we communicated this as they were quite surprised to find that we could actually perform procedures and such. (As some of you know, this was one of our fears coming over here since we are the first PA students they will have ever had). They told us that we will really have to be proactive and hands-on to be able to accomplish this. The nurses and doctors aren't used to the students who come here being able to do all that much, so we may have to essentially prove ourselves with basis procedures and work our way up..
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We had most of the afternoon off, which was a good thing as the jet lag still seems to creep up on us. So we got a nap in and check up on the “status” of our luggage. We hope to have a few pictures posted soon.
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