Hello again to all of you out there in America and far-flung parts of the world!
I realize it's only been a month since I last wrote, and I hope that these emails aren't becoming annoying. I've been sitting around eating bon-bons this month as I elected to have a vacation and see some of the sights of Zambia with two friends of mine that came out to visit from Denver. It's holiday season in Zambia as this Friday marks the end of school for 6 weeks until September. Taking a holiday from work was a good thing just to get a break from the grind of suffering and sickness. We had our breath taken away by several scenes in the game park and at Victoria Falls, but I won't try to overburden the email server with too many pictures in this email. Zambia (and Botswana) can be incredibly beautiful, sometimes something you forget when the hospital trash pit smells like burning rubber and you've seen another leg covered in warts, or pus, or burned down to the bone.
That being said, I've been glad to be back at the hospital. I had missed seeing several of the young teenagers who I had been caring for the past few weeks, and managed to get a few good pictures before they flew the coop. Hospital life continues to have its share of frustrations -- our water pumps (2 of 3) have broken, so that part of the compound has no water at all, and the rest of us are on water restrictions. We're trying to get these problems fixed but when things have to come from Lusaka, it moves slowly. Meanwhile, the people you work with are having trouble even cooking or taking a bath. I find it difficult to know what the proper response should be -- should I invite 20 people over to my house every day to take a shower? I think I probably don't end up doing enough for my co-workers.
One of the difficult (maybe the most difficult) part of becoming a government hospital is our requirement to be landlords and provide free housing for all the government staff that work at the hospital, around 100 or so workers. I feel like I spend a lot of my time trying to solve community living problems rather than medical problems and a lot of our funds are spent on problems like the water pump or fixing toilets, instead of on medicines, etc. On the other hand, if we are going to make a difference here in Kasempa, one of the major impacts will be how we treat the people that work at the hospital and show them love, provide jobs, allow for fulfilling vocations, and so forth. You shouldn't run a hospital without first taking care of your nurses, lab technicians, radiographers, doctors, etc, so things like housing are important as well. But it's a problem that western hospitals don't have to face, and it's frustrating for us, because we don't have the funds to treat all of our workers the way we think they should be treated and we'd like to be treated ourselves.
I've decompressed my clinical workload so that I have more time to spend learning some surgical techniques and so forth. I'm okay now with skin grafting and closed orthopedic things. I still need lots of practice with hernias and hydrocoeles, and obviously anything bigger than that is still a little ways off. But I'm becoming more of a jack-of-all-trades doctor (a 'bush' doctor, as they like to be called) in addition to just becoming a jack-of-all-trades person -- learning some more Kaonde, figuring out the nuts and bolts of computer networks, tinkering with some motorcycle maintenance, doing a bit of gardening, figuring out how to de-worm the cat, learning some African-style hymns to play on piano, and so forth. I find it difficult to always want to be flexible -- it's nice to be able to define your job and say 'this is what I do', so that you don't get overwhelmed with requests to do other things -- but that approach doesn't work here and you have to be cheerful when something unexpected comes your way (like it does almost every day).
Thanks for your prayers and support. We are still working on the Friends of Mukinge non-profit donation conduit, thanks to all of you who've been asking. I will be sure to send out an update when that comes online. Keep praying for our patients; we have so many for whom we can only do very little.
I'll close with my GQ shot of me leaning against the frame of the picture with our newly purchased bags of maize. We are buying up all of our maize for the coming year right now; our cups overflow with corn! (note the Chuck Taylors)
Love,
Matt
That being said, I've been glad to be back at the hospital. I had missed seeing several of the young teenagers who I had been caring for the past few weeks, and managed to get a few good pictures before they flew the coop. Hospital life continues to have its share of frustrations -- our water pumps (2 of 3) have broken, so that part of the compound has no water at all, and the rest of us are on water restrictions. We're trying to get these problems fixed but when things have to come from Lusaka, it moves slowly. Meanwhile, the people you work with are having trouble even cooking or taking a bath. I find it difficult to know what the proper response should be -- should I invite 20 people over to my house every day to take a shower? I think I probably don't end up doing enough for my co-workers.
One of the difficult (maybe the most difficult) part of becoming a government hospital is our requirement to be landlords and provide free housing for all the government staff that work at the hospital, around 100 or so workers. I feel like I spend a lot of my time trying to solve community living problems rather than medical problems and a lot of our funds are spent on problems like the water pump or fixing toilets, instead of on medicines, etc. On the other hand, if we are going to make a difference here in Kasempa, one of the major impacts will be how we treat the people that work at the hospital and show them love, provide jobs, allow for fulfilling vocations, and so forth. You shouldn't run a hospital without first taking care of your nurses, lab technicians, radiographers, doctors, etc, so things like housing are important as well. But it's a problem that western hospitals don't have to face, and it's frustrating for us, because we don't have the funds to treat all of our workers the way we think they should be treated and we'd like to be treated ourselves.
I've decompressed my clinical workload so that I have more time to spend learning some surgical techniques and so forth. I'm okay now with skin grafting and closed orthopedic things. I still need lots of practice with hernias and hydrocoeles, and obviously anything bigger than that is still a little ways off. But I'm becoming more of a jack-of-all-trades doctor (a 'bush' doctor, as they like to be called) in addition to just becoming a jack-of-all-trades person -- learning some more Kaonde, figuring out the nuts and bolts of computer networks, tinkering with some motorcycle maintenance, doing a bit of gardening, figuring out how to de-worm the cat, learning some African-style hymns to play on piano, and so forth. I find it difficult to always want to be flexible -- it's nice to be able to define your job and say 'this is what I do', so that you don't get overwhelmed with requests to do other things -- but that approach doesn't work here and you have to be cheerful when something unexpected comes your way (like it does almost every day).
Thanks for your prayers and support. We are still working on the Friends of Mukinge non-profit donation conduit, thanks to all of you who've been asking. I will be sure to send out an update when that comes online. Keep praying for our patients; we have so many for whom we can only do very little.
I'll close with my GQ shot of me leaning against the frame of the picture with our newly purchased bags of maize. We are buying up all of our maize for the coming year right now; our cups overflow with corn! (note the Chuck Taylors)
Love,
Matt
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