where's the gurney?

Its a bird, its a plane, no, its a helicopter! Behind the hospital swooping down faster and closer to residential housing than should be aloud, a chopper came for some very serious medical something or other. I was on my way to another day of medical rounds this morning and couldn't wait to find out what and who is the cause of this ruckus.

I'm not going to tell you the end of the story just yet, I'm going to make you sit through another boring blog first... some incentive to read through what I have to say. So stay tuned.

The Lautoka hospital is a large building that sits on a hill across the street from the Botanical Garden. It almost looks like a hotel from a far, until you get close enough to see the smoke stack jutting out from the boiler room (which acts as a crematorium and general waste management- most things are burned- its Fiji) thats housed 30 ft from the main building. A very simple and symmetrical building, it consists of 5 levels with two wards facing each other on each floor. Its seemingly well equipped for hospital in a developing country.

Medical rounds are really fun. I've joined a team with two last year medical students, an intern, one registrar, and a consultant - that order is the basic medical hierarchy here in Fiji, with nurses answering to anyone prefaced with the two letters D and R. No specialties in our group, just general medicine (internal medicine). Basically we spend four hours (without tea breaks, do you believe that... no tea breaks! Dont they know this is Fiji?) walking through four different wards- mens, womens, ICU, and private ward (aka the pay ward- basically a place where people pay for their own rooms).

The medical students- Hilda from Kiribati and Monasa, hes Fijian- watch and answer questions when asked as the registrar writes what the consultant- Dr. Baravilala- has to say about a given patient. Its much more informal than it sounds. Me, well I'm there for show, as in I stand there, look pretty, nod and smile, and laugh on cue. Really though, I just observe and listen and viciously write down new words that I later have to look up (medicine is truly like learning a language- and I would say, anyone with an aptitude for languages should seriously consider going into medicine). A lot of times I have to hold my tongue, but sometimes I get really excited and ask away. I tell myself that I'm doing them a favor by testing their knowledge for their final exam in December.

Anyway, after rounds I head down to the library (which is so nicely placed next to the staff dining hall), look up my new words and brush up on my general biology, physiology and anatomy. After about an hour I head next door for some chow. Its good chow too, not normal hospital food- we get curry and roti and fresh fruit and dhal, mmm.

Today was pretty slow, which might be surprising from my description of my walk to work. But, turned out that the chopper wasted $3,000 of the governments money to go pick up an asthmatic man from a near by island. I found out that what I had seen was a doctor pickup. When the chopper flew back, we all pressed our faces against the window to see who had been so loudly med-evaced. The patient was fine, no gurney, no sling, nothing... he was walking! Thats all it takes, a nervous call and choppers will fly and pick you up. In fact, maybe next weekend I'll call in from one of the islands... you know, I've never been on a chopper before.

If nothing else it gave me a good, but uneasy, laugh. I kind of asked about regulations and issues concerning severity for a med-evac and the consultant said there wasnt really a system in place. In fact, he said that when he was in Suva there would be fake calls like that from the Lau group if the boats werent running properly for an extended period of time. I dont know what to say about all that except that it was a waste of money. It's really unfortunate because this man got fast care when the queue is out the door for people who are still waiting and may have traveled even farther than he did.

Okay, its almost 4:30pm and I'm off to go witness my first natural birth. yikes.

back on the grind

What they often leave out in talking about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is that shit happens along the way. Or maybe I just have selective hearing. It's been a while since I've written an entry because my house was broken into and I was robbed- two separate occasions. Cleaning up the mess wasnt easy...

All of that hullabaloo only took about a week so I will begin with the week after:

Working with outreach programs often allows you to attend really fun functions. Last week I went to two days of the U19 South Pacific National Rugby tournament. Teams came from Tahiti, Tonga, PNG, Vanuatu, Samoa, and the wonderful Fiji. Even though we played on our own turf, we lost by one point to the strong Tongan boys. Sad.


Boys from the PNG team


watching Vanuatu vs. PNG

The outreach involved distributing material between games and doing an assessment on the basic knowledge of HIV. The survey is a lot like a test- the idea being the the most misunderstood information will be better highlighted in future IEC material, or at least thats what I would do with it.

Funny story. I was in the post office sending a letter and what do I see? A guy wearing a Cornell tshirt. Now, with all of the second hand shops I thought it was just a funny coincidence that the shirt made its way all the way to Fiji, but since a kaivalagi (white person) was wearing it I thought I'd take my chances and ask. Turned out that John (the kaivalagi wearing the shirt) went to Cornell and after graduating in 2007 decided that he and his friend Keith (a collage mate) would buy a sail boat and sail around until they didnt want to anymore- that was almost two years ago. With them was the first time I've spent any extended period with Americans that weren't volunteers.



Loud Americans on boats


wigs were involved...



playing on expensive things- like boats that cost more than houses

The weekend crept up on me because I spent most of the time drinking with sailors. Saturday was a big day for the office. We were hosting an HIV and sports rally and tournament. It was called 'Walk in the West.' We were collaborating with STOP (the same organization that was doing outreach at the U19 rugby tournament).



After rallying the streets of downtown Lautoka it was time for the games to begin. Two sports; volleyball and soccer. I joined the soccer crowd... and we kicked ass because of me! Semi finals and we're down two points, the games are short (6 minutes a half) and we're clearly going to lose. But no, i came in like a cherry picking wonder woman to save the day- two consecutive goals with my mean right foot- tied, into overtime and we score- we made it. That right, into the finals for the Lautoka Hospital team. I'm kind of a big deal, so start sending in requests for autographs now if you want any chance of getting one.


Sweaty after the soccer games

Anyway, work is still fun and Fiji is still beautiful. I have started to attend medical rounds at the Lautoka Hospital with the Fiji School of Medicine medical students. It gives me a chance to get out of the office when things are slow and still makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something, even though I'm not really doing my job. Yesterday I spent the day in Radiology learning about different bones (broken and normal) and how to tell if fluid is leaking into someones lungs, among other things. Rounds are actually really fun and I learn a lot.

Thats all for now. More to report later.