Hallo! (Hello in Afrikaans :P)
Just to put most of you more at ease, I have managed to acquaint myself much better to the driving on the "wrong-right" side - as I explain it to the South Africans here. Once you get used to driving on the left side, now I just need to avoid the random time I try to shift with my right hand and hit the window!!
We last left off at me getting settled in to "Swanage". That is the place where I am staying and again to put most of you at ease - we have high walls around the house, electric gate entrance, alarm sensors in yard, bars on doors, gates inside the house separating the upstairs from the downstairs. So, it can't get anymore safe. Actually, nice rottweilers would be great! LOL In other words, I am pretty safe here at night when I sleep :)
On my first day, I had to drive Li (friend from Denmark) to the hospital she works at because her car had broken down the day before. Lot's of traffic in Joburg at 7:30am, kind of reminded me of highway 15, only thing is that the "combies" (small buses that pack more people than they can) think that every lane is a bus lane and will try and zig zag their way through anything - most of the fender benders you see are caused by these guys!! So you just try and keep a nice distance. Oh and when they are honking right behind you, don't take it personal because this is not directed at you, but the person across the street they are trying to catch their attention! Once I dropped off Li, I made my way to the University of Witts Medical School. This is a buzzing university, there are so many medical students, nursing students, health science students around. It's a great mix of people from all over the world.
I finally met Dawn Francis, the lady I was dealing with by email for the last 9 months while setting up my elective. She is awesome! Really nice lady who loves taking care of her international students! In her office were 3 other students who were going to be around for the next month or so. Olivia from England, Nicki from Australia and Pavel from Russia/Australia/Austria. We got our scrubs, trauma books, orientation, ID passes (even hospital has gates to enter) and we were all set!
Nicki was going to be with me at Joburg General, Olivia at Bara and Pavel doing ER at Bara. Nicki and I went to go say hi to the trauma team and figure out our schedule. We kind of arrived during morning handover, which can be pretty intimidating. The consultants (staff) sit across from the registrars (residents) and the medical officers (interns) sit along the wall behind them and everyone else finds a seat somewhere. We entered the room and they just kept talking as if they didn't care who we were. At this point, they talk about all the traumas that came in the night before. We were not dressed for the occasion - i was in my jeans, flips flops and back pack. Oh well! Once that was over, the head of the unit, Dr. Steve Moeng, asked us to round with the team and we will talk to him later. And so we did, but we couldn't find him after. We slowly sneaked away and decided to leave and come back tomorrow morning all dressed up and ready to go!
Just to clear things up. It is so difficult to get a general surgery residency spot here! This is known as a registrar spot in general surgery. For the most part, medical school is 5-6 years, then you do 2 years internship, 1 year community, then work as a medical officer until you can get a spot as a registrar and then that will be 5 years + specialization.
I was quite surprised to see how huge the hospital was. People everywhere, every specialty available, but very basic set ups. Trauma has their ward, major injury unit (trauma icu) and casualty care area (trauma bay) and theatre (what we call ORs). The major injury unit is a 8-10 bed ICU, that's full with critically ill patients. Ventilators, one to one nursing (expect for at night, when you can have maybe 2-3 nurses for all 10 patients in an ICU) and any procedure can be available at bedside (ex. percutaneous tracheostomy). The casualty care area, known as 163 (local number in hospital) is a 6 bed trauma bay that for the most part squeezes 10-12 on weekends. This is where the ambulance, helicopters, cabs, cars drop off critical trauma patients to us to assess. This is where I will be spending most of my time!! Just to give some people an idea, the saturday before I came, they performed 9 exploratory laparotomies in one night! That is intense! They had 7 stab wound patients and 3 gun shot wounds. This usually occurs on the nights of a soccer game. Also, I will be here for 2 big crazy weekends - soccer again, easter weekend and human rights day. This are going to get interesting! They made sure that those not working will be available to come in, which they most probably will!! I will be working overnight on those days!!
It's really amazing out here! Such a great experience and even all the people I am meeting! So far, I am good friends with people from Australia, Denmark, Sweden, England and Austria! We have been getting together for dinner our first 2 nights. We all get along really well and all have different perspectives of medicine, life, etc... It's going to be a great month with them and more students are expected to join us! We are trying to organize some safaris together and other fun trips!!
It's getting pretty late now and I also have to finish an assignment that McGill Medicine Public Health course gave us to do with a deadline one week after our course was done. Obviously we are all going to procrastinate!
Talk to you guys soon!
Phil
P.S. Shout to my mom, dad, steven, lawrence, ice and angel! Miss you guys :) xox
P.P.S Evie - you get your own shout out. Sagapo para poli! So proud of you on your perfect teachers evaluation!! Your kids are so lucky to have such a smart, talented teacher to show them the way! And I am even luckier to have you forever!! xoxo
gnight
Just to put most of you more at ease, I have managed to acquaint myself much better to the driving on the "wrong-right" side - as I explain it to the South Africans here. Once you get used to driving on the left side, now I just need to avoid the random time I try to shift with my right hand and hit the window!!
We last left off at me getting settled in to "Swanage". That is the place where I am staying and again to put most of you at ease - we have high walls around the house, electric gate entrance, alarm sensors in yard, bars on doors, gates inside the house separating the upstairs from the downstairs. So, it can't get anymore safe. Actually, nice rottweilers would be great! LOL In other words, I am pretty safe here at night when I sleep :)
 |
| Elvis and I - the little boy that lives at the house with me :) |
I finally met Dawn Francis, the lady I was dealing with by email for the last 9 months while setting up my elective. She is awesome! Really nice lady who loves taking care of her international students! In her office were 3 other students who were going to be around for the next month or so. Olivia from England, Nicki from Australia and Pavel from Russia/Australia/Austria. We got our scrubs, trauma books, orientation, ID passes (even hospital has gates to enter) and we were all set!
 |
| Nicki from Australia. We swipe our cards here to gain access to the hospital. |
 |
| Taken after my shift. |
Nicki was going to be with me at Joburg General, Olivia at Bara and Pavel doing ER at Bara. Nicki and I went to go say hi to the trauma team and figure out our schedule. We kind of arrived during morning handover, which can be pretty intimidating. The consultants (staff) sit across from the registrars (residents) and the medical officers (interns) sit along the wall behind them and everyone else finds a seat somewhere. We entered the room and they just kept talking as if they didn't care who we were. At this point, they talk about all the traumas that came in the night before. We were not dressed for the occasion - i was in my jeans, flips flops and back pack. Oh well! Once that was over, the head of the unit, Dr. Steve Moeng, asked us to round with the team and we will talk to him later. And so we did, but we couldn't find him after. We slowly sneaked away and decided to leave and come back tomorrow morning all dressed up and ready to go!
Just to clear things up. It is so difficult to get a general surgery residency spot here! This is known as a registrar spot in general surgery. For the most part, medical school is 5-6 years, then you do 2 years internship, 1 year community, then work as a medical officer until you can get a spot as a registrar and then that will be 5 years + specialization.
I was quite surprised to see how huge the hospital was. People everywhere, every specialty available, but very basic set ups. Trauma has their ward, major injury unit (trauma icu) and casualty care area (trauma bay) and theatre (what we call ORs). The major injury unit is a 8-10 bed ICU, that's full with critically ill patients. Ventilators, one to one nursing (expect for at night, when you can have maybe 2-3 nurses for all 10 patients in an ICU) and any procedure can be available at bedside (ex. percutaneous tracheostomy). The casualty care area, known as 163 (local number in hospital) is a 6 bed trauma bay that for the most part squeezes 10-12 on weekends. This is where the ambulance, helicopters, cabs, cars drop off critical trauma patients to us to assess. This is where I will be spending most of my time!! Just to give some people an idea, the saturday before I came, they performed 9 exploratory laparotomies in one night! That is intense! They had 7 stab wound patients and 3 gun shot wounds. This usually occurs on the nights of a soccer game. Also, I will be here for 2 big crazy weekends - soccer again, easter weekend and human rights day. This are going to get interesting! They made sure that those not working will be available to come in, which they most probably will!! I will be working overnight on those days!!
It's really amazing out here! Such a great experience and even all the people I am meeting! So far, I am good friends with people from Australia, Denmark, Sweden, England and Austria! We have been getting together for dinner our first 2 nights. We all get along really well and all have different perspectives of medicine, life, etc... It's going to be a great month with them and more students are expected to join us! We are trying to organize some safaris together and other fun trips!!
It's getting pretty late now and I also have to finish an assignment that McGill Medicine Public Health course gave us to do with a deadline one week after our course was done. Obviously we are all going to procrastinate!
Talk to you guys soon!
Phil
P.S. Shout to my mom, dad, steven, lawrence, ice and angel! Miss you guys :) xox
P.P.S Evie - you get your own shout out. Sagapo para poli! So proud of you on your perfect teachers evaluation!! Your kids are so lucky to have such a smart, talented teacher to show them the way! And I am even luckier to have you forever!! xoxo
gnight
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