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
