Reflections

I haven’t written in a while, not because nothing has happened but because I find myself getting use to the order of things. I no longer count the amount of deaths we have each week as I did in my earlier months, neither do I complain about the lack of resources. It is the order of the day and lamenting never helped anyone; one just has to make best with what we have here.  My time here is slowly drawing to an end and I find that I have become very reflective about what these few months have taught me.

 At first I was worried that I have become hardened to mortality and that scared me, but this isn’t true as one of my favorite patient “passed” last week whilst we were away and I find that I feel such a great loss on the passing of this lovely 2.5 year old boy who has been in Nalufenya for over 4 months. I realize that doctors working in these situations are not hardened to mortality; they have learnt a way to cope with it without burning out. One of the Ugandan doctors once told me that she hardly cries at the loss of a patient now because she did all her crying when she was a Medical student. I can relate to this in my time here.

Lunch with work colleagues

On a personal level, I am overwhelmed by how far I have come.  It really is true that you do not know what you are capable of until you are pushed. Jinja has taught me to be patience and tolerance, in truth my character and identity as a person has been greatly tested over the few months and I feel a better person for doing this. The challenges I anticipated ahead of this experience seem ever so trivial in comparison to what were truly my challenges. More than any fancy clinical skills, I find that in these situations your relationships with people matters as well.

Apparently this baby looks like me

Professionally I feel more focused than ever, this is what I like doing.  This experience has taught me to rely on my clinical skills more than any investigation; I have learnt to think outside the box and find alternative, simpler ways to treat our patients instead of worrying about what I do not have. I now realize how ambitious some of my aims and objectives were and although I haven’t achieved every single one of them, in here lies a lesson itself. Patience! Rome wasn’t built in a day. In the last 5 months I have done more teaching than I did at home and this has also opened up another interest of mine. People ask me if I think I am a better doctor for doing this. I hope I am! I feel so luck to be able to do this job. 

Working on the special care unit

Lastly I have come to appreciate my life even more, I feel incredibly blessed for the opportunities I have had thus far. To have such great mentors, friends and family both at home and amongst the expat community here is incredible. Thank you to you all once again.  Will I do this again? The answer is yes, in a heartbeat.