Prem

So today started out like every other day. I got to work grabbed my study forms and headed to the NNU to round on the babies. Nothing new... I was working in Prem (the room that houses most of the premature babies) when one of the nurses brought a baby that was transferring from the ICU. He was in one of those plastic bassinets that are everywhere here and she placed him on a chair (not exactly the best place to put a baby) while she got his incubator here. Note.. that it would probably have been better to get the incubator ready and then move him from the ICU...but that's neither here nor there... anyway I hadn't seen her come in with the bassinet but I had noticed it on the chair as I rounded. Then three other nurses came in and she worked with them to give the morning medications to the rest of the babies. As I juggled files with the nurses I promptly forgot about the probable baby in the bassinet on the chair. Anyway while I was making my way around the room. She was pulling an incubator away from the wall very close to where the bassinet was resting in its precarious perch.
I looked down to write the weight for the baby I was reviewing into my form and then I hear "thunk". I look up and sure enough the bassinet is flipped over. I look to the nurse and she seems unfazed, she's noticed the bassinet but is intent on moving the incubator to a new position. I think oh...maybe she moved the baby, but I look in the incubator she's using and its empty..there's no sound of crying coming from the bassinet though, and you'd think that a baby that just went through a whirlwind flip would be a little miffed about it. Regardless a feeling of dread stole over me... I went to pick up the bassinet, since it really didn't make much sense to leave it lying there baby or not. I was thinking not of course. I lifted up the plastic and then removed the first blanket. No baby... oh ok I reasoned to myself as I bent to pick the rest maybe she placed the baby somewhere, else... especially as she sees me here picking up everything and doesn't seem the least concerned... I remove another blanket and stop and stare ... and sure enough there is the baby lying on the floor. It really shocked the crap out of me.. I mean I hadn't expected to see it there.

"There a baby on the floor" I yelled aghast as I bent to pick it up... she seeing the baby sprung into action, took it from me, and replaced it in the bassinet on the chair, but this time placing the chair such that the bassinet was between it and the wall. Oh yeah that much safer... She could tell I was a little stunned as she smiled sheepishly at me... and I'm thinking what are you smiling about, that premature baby just smacked its little head on the ground... I take a look at the baby it looks a little grey but otherwise fine and not even a peep, though that could be because its still trying to muster the will to live... I mean it did come from the ICU. I take another glance at the baby and then sit back down to collect myself and my papers. I mean when does that ever happen... really....that shouldn't happen.. right??... She finished hooking the baby up to various monitors and then looks and me and says she's sorry. I just look back, and say well it seems the baby's alright I guess..but maybe you should keep a close eye on it.... i kind of mumble because I not sure what to say...though I'm thinking maybe you shouldn't be apologizing to me.. maybe you should apologize to that baby's mother, or to that baby when in a few years it cant even count to five. I mean its already premature with RDS and HIV exposed it doesn't really need much more.

Great weather?

Great weather for me used to include sunny skies and cooling coastal breezes. Now I look forward to cloudy skies and rainy days that leave the nights comfortably cool here is Botswana. Thankfully it rained today.  

catching up

So its been about 3 weeks since I returned from my trip to the US from Botswana. I had a really wonderful time! Seeing my family during thanksgiving was fantastic, everyone came over to the house and we had a fun cook out. I spent most of the day before thanksgiving trying to find a deep fryer with my mother for the turkey. She wanted to try a new recipe that called for deep frying the bird. Unfortunately Home depot had sold out so we had to settle for the more traditional roasting technique. It was still very good though. More importantly though my mom made gumbo which is my single favorite holiday food! Nothing says thanksgiving like crab legs! Frighteningly my niece and nephews have grown considerably since I last saw them. See pics below. Ally is still not going to anyone but her mother, though Andrew is a little better. Deiji is running all around and fem and Chris (the two oldest) stand back and observe it all with bored expressions.





At the holidays my family usually ends up playing a game of some sort. Last Christmas it was Wii bowling which everyone, even my mother, enjoyed. The year before that it was trivial pursuit and scrabble. I guess you could say we evolved a bit... Anyway this year it was all about Texas hold'em. My sister had never played before so I think my brothers thought she'd be an easy mark. Unfortunately, for they were mistaken. I was happy to just hold my own. Anyway after that it was on to the conference in Boston.

During the week in Boston we read about various aspects of global health, as well as met with Jim Kim over dinner at the Harvard club. It was generally a good discussion and gave me some good ideas about materials that I could read to expand my knowledge in the area of building health systems. Unfortunately I came back to a ton of work, but with my research assistant we got everything done.

I had a short 6 hour layover in London, and took the time to walk around the city and take some pictures. The horse drawn carriage by Buckingham palace was an odd sight.






Unfortunately a few days after returning I heard of the passing of a high school friend. She died suddenly in a car accident while driving home from a Celtics game. It was definitely a shock. Luckily I was able to connect with mutual friends through Facebook to spend some time reminiscing.....She will be missed...

Christmas was a quiet affair during which I had dinner with one of my roommates, her boyfriend, and one of the Penn Doris Duke students. I also started reading Battlefield Earth... I think that was its called.... the L. Ron Hubbard saga that started Scientology... It was fun to get together and cook and sing along with various Christmas carols streamed through YouTube. Back to work!

Tsamaya sentle

B

Month in Review

So now that I have a minute here's a quick rundown of what I've been up to lately!

Sadly, at the beginning of November one of my new friends Sarah, whom I met on the plane flying into Gaborone back in september, returned to the states. She was here working for  ITECH a company that specializes in teaching clinicians and other healthcare workers about HIV/AIDS, they also plan conferences, and run various studies in Gabs, India, and other places around the world. Definitely will miss her and our sunday brunches as Sanitas. However before she left we went with another friend to see the Gaborone Choral Society's rendition of Handel. They were actually pretty good! Anyone can join and I'm definitely considering it though I'm very rusty!

The following weekend I went with my roommate becky to watch her trainer at a bodybuilding contest. It was definitely one of the funniest things I've ever seen. I had fun trying to remember all names of the muscles as they bugled on display. Even though the body building community in Bots in pretty small, a few of the builders have major sponsors! 

That same weekend I went with some of the Penn people(Penn runs the medicine residency at Princess Marina Hospital, so they have a big presence at the hospital, with lots of residents, medical students etc), including one of the other Doris Duke fellows, to a Jazz festival at Botswana Craft (craft store). It was really great though like most events in Gabs, there was barely anyone there. It didnt matter though... the music was great and and everyone was dancing. 

Well I'm now about 24 hours from getting on my flight back to the US for the mandatory check-in meeting. I''ve pretty much been running around this week trying to make sure that things get done while I'm away and that my study wont grind to a screeching halt. One of the things about doing research internationally in a resource limited setting is that I am essentially the infrastructure. So when I leave there goes my work... sigh.... My research requires pretty much daily data collection (usually including weekends, though I try to be in and out!), so missing a week is a definite calamity, especially because once the patient files leave the NNU they are often swallowed up into the black hole of medical records, never to be seen again. Luckily, I was able to hire a nursing student to cover for me while I'm away. The training went well, and I've left detailed instructions, so hopefully between her and my other research assistant kelebogile, who's doing the maternity data extraction, everything will get done. Hopefully.... Regardless, for the most part my study is going well. One major problem has cropped up though. I'm having trouble linking mother to neonate data in the study. I actually created a study number system for linking, in MS access, however less than half of my neonates are linked to their mother. What I'm hoping is that its not a problem with the study number system, but rather the lack of linking is due to a high number of referrals. Kele actually hasnt been collecting data on referral mom's (usually not enough info to warrant collection) so they could account for the missing information! I'll figure this out when I'm in the states and have time to sit and further analyze what I've collected. 

Sala Sentle!

B

Useful setswana phrases

So I started taking  tswana class 3 weeks ago. It's been really fun so far. There are only three people in the class, myself and a couple from the US who've been here for over a year. Our teacher, Pono, has taught setswana to foreigners for over 20 years, so she quite good! Though I'm definitely having trouble pronouncing some of the words.... I mean how do you think ngwanaka is said?? = wanaka. right.. Anyway I've already learned some useful phrases including: Ke ko pa metsi? (may I have some water). Ke bo kae? (How much is this?). Dumela mma/rra tlhotse jang? (hello sir ma'am, how are you this afternoon?). No I just have to tackle the grammar and the 18 different conjugation rules. .... 

Toad invasion??

So it about 10pm here and I just returned home from a long day at the hospital.  As I was walking towards my house from my car I saw and quickly skirted around a few of the toads that are ever present at night around the water drains here. Those who know me know that I'm not a big fan of bugs, critters and anything slimy that jumps, or even doesn't jump. And yes I know that I am far bigger than any of these animals and insects and so I shouldn't really be afraid of them... I prefer to categorize my feelings as a healthy dislike.  Unfortunately sitting on my doorstep was not one but two decently sized toads. And of course (because life sometimes just isn't fair) as I drew closer to open the door, they in turn jumped closer to it, so that if I had opened it I would have had two new roommates. So instead of doing that I walked around to the back of the house and attempted to enter through the garden. Now of course if there were two toads on my doorstep, lets try to guess how many where in my back yard... sigh.... so after stepping on a few I quickly scrambled inside. Otherwise another uneventful day of data collection and entry!

cheers

B

Excel 1 : Bunmi 0.25 humm make that excel 1: Bunmi 0

So Its now excel 1 bunmi 0.25 in the battle of bunmi versus the excel database. For those of you who dont know my predecessor placed most of her data in a pretty supped up excel sheet, and I've been asked by my PI to do the same. The only difference between us though is that she had maybe 200 data fields (i.e columns), where as I have..... here is where I went to check my spread sheet to wow you with my over 700 columns but low and behold my file has been corrupted.... sigh..... well this is not too surprising considering I was working on a desktop at work. Anyway I HAD over 700 columns. Which is alot of scrolling... I made a macros (simple program) to help speed up the data entry process, but I'm definitely thinking of switching to MS access to make my database. excel just isnt cutting it!