Journey to Cape Town

One of the reasons why I extended my trip a little longer past 4 weeks was because I wanted to get the chance to travel around in South Africa and still have enough time to get as much out of my Trauma elective. I am very happy I did this because it gave me the chance to spend 3 days in Swaziland and 4 days in Cape Town. When I first arrived to Johannesburg (alone) I wasn't quite sure how and with who I was going to be arranging these trips. Luckily, there are many students out here from all over the world with the same goals, expectations and plans. So this does make it easier as we all quickly become close friends, stick together and build friendships. In my case, I have made great friends while in Joburg. Only concern I am sure most of you have had while reading my blogs is that they are mostly girls. Most of the students coming out here are girls, so it made it hard for me to choose between staying home or knowing that I have a loving, trusting and supportive fiancee that would not delve too deep into this. This all works because of the communication we have together and love for each other. Even though Evie is in Montreal, she has met and became friends with Li and Niki :) They are the two that I have been spending most of my time with in SA. Li is my housemate and Niki was in Trauma with me.  Anyways, all this to say is that we all wanted to go to Cape Town - and this is what we did!!

We chose to fly to Cape Town, however we did consider taking the 26 hour scenic train ride through the mountains or we could have driven for 13 hours straight. Usually flights are very cheap to Cape Town, somewhere between 100-200$. We found cheap tickets however we had to fly out of Lanseria airport (30 mins from Joburg) in order to get them cheaper. We flew with Mango air - airplane was orange! (My favorite color :)) Flight was at 7am, so Niki picked us up at 5am on Sat morning (after being out the night before at the Casino - wow that place was crazy, very Vegas style!!) So as you can imagine, we all slept on the plane. Arriving in Cape Town was very refreshing. This place does not compare to Joburg. First of all, it is much safer (or it feels much safer) and it's soooo beautiful!! Cape Town was first discovered by the Dutch when they were traveling the see looking for India. It became the place to be and the Cape area was a common place for all travellers to stop in the harbor and visit the cities natural beauty! I can just imagine the face of those who first discovered it! We rented our car from Avis ;) and we were on our way. We booked to stay at a very nice Hostel (Atlantic Point) which was near the waterfront area and close proximity to Long St. (kind of like St-Catherine's street in Montreal). Once we arrived there, we checked in our bags, locked up our passports and went walking towards the Waterfront area. This reminded me a lot of Old Port Montreal. It was a very touristy area with shops, restaurants, lots of people, the water, ships, yachts, etc... We had breakfast at this really cute bakery and went through Lonely Planet to figure out our itinerary for the next 4 days. One thing you always worry about when you travel with other people is if we will all want to do the same things (especially if I am traveling with 2 girls!) In a matter of minutes, we packed in our 4 days solid and went to book all the things we wanted to do. We walked over to the tourist information area and booked a wine tour in the Stellenbosch vineyards, Inverdoorn Safari day trip and Robben Island prison (where Nelson Mandela was held for many years). The rest was things that we didn't have to book. We were all very excited - we tried to pack in as much as we could. Shark diving was on my list, but the water conditions weren't favorable for that, next time! Once that was all done, we got into the car and headed our way towards Cape of Good Hope, this is the Southern most point of South Africa, right at the tip of Cape Town. This is about 1 hour and half drive, so we bought some snacks and headed towards there. About halfway there, we stopped to visit the Penguins! I had no clue that penguins existed without snow. Maybe this is me being ignorant, but either they were in Batman movie or north pole! lol You learn something new all the time. The penguins are by the water/rocks and you park your car by the side of the road and watch them. I got few pics and a cool video which I posted on facebook.  While we were there, I heard greek voices! I ran over and started talking to them in Greek. They were impressed that someone from Montreal spoke such good greek. One of the guys who works as a mechanical engineer in Joburg was touring with his family who was in town to visit, his wife also happened to be an anesthetist. Small world! Time was an issue, the sun was slowly setting and we wanted to make it to the point before that happened. We were driving along the coast, such beautiful scenery, mountains, water, it was absolutely amazing. We finally arrived to the national park you need to drive through to get to the point - PARK HAD JUST CLOSED 15 minutes ago :( We were so upset and just turned around to drive back. Oh well, after thinking of it, we should have bribed the guards, maybe that would have worked!! We got back to the hostel, took a nap and then went for dinner. After dinner, we went back to the hostel because it was Mojito night. I also met Canadians!! Haven't met any for the longest time in SA. From outside Toronto and one was from West Island, Montreal! They were students on exchange. We had a few drinks and then everyone from the hostel decided to go to a bar. We tagged along and ended up in such a funny place. I mean the place was busy, lots of people, young crowd. But the music was horrible, so old school. The DJs were in their 60's with mullets - very weird! We didn't last long here and got advice to go to this other club which was on the 31st floor overlooking the city! Much better change. I really liked this place, we had some drinks and I became friends with the DJ and hung out in the DJ booth for most of the time. Bar closed at 4am. We got home pretty late and passed out. Next morning we wake up at around 1pm - mostly hung over and to realize that we were being picked up in 20 minutes  for the wine tour we booked! As much as we wanted to do this, we were dreading it!! Van picked us up and picked up another 4 people (much older than us) - but we made the best of it. Li and Niki were trying really hard not to puke because they get very car sick. So they were quiet along the way, while one of the passengers, in his 80's from NewCastle was trying to tell us his medical history after he found out we were doctors. Interesting drive!! Also, there were 2 ladies from London and once we started talking they said they worked in Clinical Communication in Medicine. I then mentioned the Dr. Crues' couple (husband and wife who teach us physiscianship at McGill) and they knew them! They were good friends and work together. They were recently visiting at McGill and saying how much they love our faculty of medicine! Such a small world!!

Oh geezzz...time is running out. I have to pack my bags and get ready to leave. So I will try and speed this up and complement it all with pictures!

The wine tour was great, beautiful wineries in the mountains, lots of history and obviously great wine! It was really tough to drink after a night out drinking, but I definitely drank all the tastings and did not spit any of it out! We arrived home in late afternoon, went for dinner and then back to hostel and passed out till the next morning. The weather the next day wasn't so great. Our plan to Robben Island was cancelled because the sea conditions weren't great to travel to the island. So instead we went for breakfast on Long St., walked around and then visited the district 6 museum. District 6 was an area in Cape Town that was demolished during the time of the apartheid to make it a white only area and get all the blacks and coloured people out of there. Such a sad story. The museum was basically depicting what it was like during those times and you can also get guided tours from residents of district 6 who lived through those times. After the museum, we drove to Table Mountain. This is one of the new 7 nature wonders of the world. It really is!! I posted a picture already from the top of the mountain, it was incredible. We wanted to hike up there (1.5 hours) but the weather was too cold and we didn't have much time, so we took the most steepest cable car ride up there! The top of the mountain is at 3000ft above sea level. It's also called table mountain because the top is flat and is 3km by 3km of trails, flowers, animals, etc... Everyone should go here!! Funny story, while we were entering the cable car, some guy asked us to bring up a sweater and look for Richard because he will be cold up at the top. He showed us a picture of him and said he's with his daughter. We found this so strange and silly! We brought the sweater up, but couldn't find Richard. So Niki just carried it the whole way and said we would drop it off at info desk at bottom. Once we got to the bottom, a van drove passed us and started honking! It was Richard...they were leaving but saw us holding his red sweater! Oh well, guess he was cold up there, but he got his sweater back! We then went for dinner at a nice fancy french cuisine restaurant by the water and ended our night with a movie. Yup, we went to the movies. We were so tired and had to wake up at 5am the next morning for our safari. We enjoyed the die hard movie with bruce willis. Good movie and lots of action, as usual!!

Next morning, we were picked up at 630am, driven to 3 hours to Inverdoorn game reserve and went on a 2.5 hour safari! It was so cool! Very cold but awesome. We got to see buffalo, cheetahs, lions, giraffes, springbocks, wildebeest, rhinos, hippos, elephants... and we were so close to them!! Check out the pics for more :) After the safari was over, we had lunch at the reserve and were driven straight to the airport to fly back to Joburg!

This was a great trip! 4 days is not enough but we were able to get a good taste of Cape Town. Would definitely come back with Evie one day! I had a great time with Niki and Li and we all got along so well. Glad we all went together. It was funny though, we were all happy to be back in Joburg.

Now I am rushing on my last day to pack, do some errands, meet up with everyone at the Orlando Towers in Soweto for lunch and then will be on my way to the airport. I will begin my 30 some odd hours of traveling with a 7 hour stop in London again. I will definitely make the most out of this again and meet up with some friends while I am there!!

Joburg has been great. I really got everything I wanted out of this trip. Friends, experience, touring, trauma, etc... My blogging is not over yet - will update you all on my trip back!

Didn't have time to load pics - will load them when I have more time, maybe at the airport!!

See you all soon!!
Phil

4 years later and 30 days in Joburg

What better way to finish your last day ever as a medical student in sunny Johannesburg, South Africa! I didn't even realize this accomplishment until I logged on to facebook and saw one of my friends status update. I just got home after finishing my last day in Trauma at the Joburg Hospital. I don't think it has all sunk in yet because I am away from home. I can remember very clearly on June 4th when I received an email from McGill medicine with my acceptance letter after waiting 2 months on the waiting list. Words can't really express how surreal that feeling was when I got that letter. Now, almost 4 years later, medical school is done (well kind of - still have to study for my licensing exam on May 1st) but done as a medical student. In just under 3 months though I will be shifting gears and start my residency - finally will be doing what I have always wanted to be doing, surgery! It's funny though because these last 4 years we have all built up ourselves at being at the top, as 4th year med students. Now, on July 1st, we are back at the bottom, the rookies, the students in surgery - only difference is that there will be great responsibility, no more counter signing your orders or prescriptions and the one we all have been waiting for, we will be getting a paycheck!! Anything can help at this point, it will be stressful but I am sure will be a great feeling. I can't wait!

Now back to reality...

Last night, we went to dinner at The Local Grill in Parktown. This was a superb meat place and we all really enjoyed it. The owners at first asked us where we were from and we said: Canada, Germany, Sweeden, Austria, Scottland, Denmark and Australia. We have actually met new people that started on Monday. Three Swedish people (surgeon, anesthetist and anesthesia nurse - all from the army), Maria from Germany, Marlyse from Austria and Michael from Scottland. They were a little confused at first wondering what we were all doing together. After telling them we were studying medicine he then came back to our table and brought us all (10) to visit his kitchen! This was very cool. This restaurant basically gets their meat straight from the farm, free range from different places in South Africa - age it themselves (either wet or dry) and they have so many cuts available. He showed us the fridge that was full of meat - omg soooo good! Obviously I took some pics (below). We really had an amazing time and ate like champions. There's nothing like a good fillet or t-bone steak to fill you up. After the restaurant we walked across the street to the Foundry. A nice place to have drinks at the bar, only problem was that they were closing early. So we made our way out to The Office to have more drinks and hang out. Both these places have good reputations and safe for us to go. We had a really nice night and it's really something else to be able to meet all these people from all over the world. According to the waiter, my red beard made him think that I was German.

Woke up Friday morning from a knock on my door. Li's car has broken down again (4 times now in last month) and she had to be at Bara Hospital. I woke up, showered and offered her a ride and then I would make my way to the Joburg Hospital right after. No big deal. Her car broke down on my first at the hospital and now on my last day, we are just closing the loop ;) On our way there, I was waiting to merge into the main road yielding and waiting to turn left. I am in the left hand lane and there is this huge truck beside me also waiting to turn left. He starts approaching into the lane because he has the better view of the oncoming traffic, so I decide to advance as well. He then takes his turn and completely smashes into my driver rear side scrapping it as he advances into his lane. As this happens, I freak out and look up towards the truck and the passenger is just looking at me while he drives off. There is no way they didn't see this happen. I didn't know what to do because there was cars coming behind and he had driven away. I get out and look at my car and see that he damaged my right side rear bumper and scrapes along passenger and driver door. THIS WAS MY LAST DAY WITH THE CAR, AS I WAS RETURNING IT BACK TO THE AIRPORT TODAY!!!! F*&^*#K!! I got back into my car and asking Li what I should do, when this guy runs up to me saying that he saw everything and tried to stop the driver at a red light but he refused and drove off. He managed to get his licence plate number and told me he would be a witness and gave me his name and number. I really appreciated that! At this point, I had to drive Li to the hospital and eventually be at the hospital for 9:30 and this happend at 8am. We were very frustrated and started driving away. Once we got on the M1 (highway) we actually saw the truck up ahead! I drove up to him, took pics of his plates and truck with my phone and Li took pictures of his face and we were yelling at him to pull over. He was basically ignoring us. Then my South African inside me took the best of me and I drove in front of him and basically slowed down, not letting him pass and shoving my arm out the window telling him to PULL OVER. This is when I realized there were 6 black guys in the truck. Eventually he pulls over and I was like "Shit do I get out?" I figured its day light, there's lots of cars around and people - I should be ok. As they all get out of the truck (I am in scrubs and stethoscope around my neck) I tell them I am not looking for trouble but that he accidentally hit me and we need to exchange info. He was like no way, how would I hit you? Where? I never saw you? I only saw an old man with beard (maybe that was me?!) Then he goes on saying, show me on my truck where I hit you? You see doctor there is no damage anywhere on my truck, it can't be me. One of the guys was telling Li, oh well we didn't have room to turn and then suddenly changed his story to "Oh well it's not us, impossible" At this point, there was no talking to them, we didn't want to start shit, so I told him I am going to police station and will deal with this, so we drove away! After I was done at the hospital, I went to the police station because I figured I would need a report to show Avis what happened. Once I got to the police station, the officer made me fill out my own report, came back and stamped it, gave me a case number and said thank you very much. Interesting way of doing business around here. Anyways, I brought the car back to Avis and they said that I basically have to pay the deductible and all the costs to repair and once they collect the money from the 3rd party (aka the driver) they will pay me back. UHmmm....I really need to figure this out because I don't think I will ever see my money back if this is the case. I will speak to Vicky (cousin who works at Avis in Montreal and always hooks me up!!!) and hopefully we can work something out. End of the day, happy that no one was hurt and nothing else you can do about it. I am so pissed because I was able to avoid the crazy taxies/combies for 33 days and on my last day with the car, this happens!!

So my elective is done, tomorrow we fly to Cape Town for 4 days, return on tuesday and I leave on Wednesday and get home on Thursday. I am excited for Cape Town but I am also at the point where I am excited to come home. A little home sick and missing Evie :)

Thanks again to all my family, friends and Evie for the ongoing support! It really makes it all worth it and so much fun to be living your dream and having fun while doing it.

See you all soon :)
Phil

Sneak peak of the kitchen at The Local Grill 

The owner talking about their meat specialty

Salt slabs where they cook the meat

Uhmmm

The group

At The Office

At The Office

FaceTime with Anthi :)

Muah!! xox

The truck 

The damage - it's really not that bad, but now have to deal with Avis and insurance

My police claim - very professional

For my friends at EMS in Cote St-Luc

Helicopter shift

Had a great day on my helicopter observer shift! Unfortunately we didn't get to fly out today for a call. There were 2 possible flights, once the pilot agreed, they then have to get authorization from the government medical officers and hospitals and for some reason we had to stand down twice. This was so shitty, it was like taking candy away from a kid! I was so excited and then boom let down. All in all, it was a great experience. Hung out with the pilot, doctor and paramedic all day. They were really nice, we watched lots of tv, walked around the hanger, had lunch together and had a flight lesson from the pilot. He explained to me that all the buttons are usually back up systems just in case things fail, lots of back up...good to know! Would have been that much better though if we went out for a call. Oh well, if I had more time here I would have gone back for more. Just got home and getting ready to go for steak with the group from the hospital I am at. Looking forward to a nice steak dinner that Li suggested. Specializes in steak - can choose the age, cut, etc... Yummy!!


That's all for now folks...here are some pics of my day :)

Phil

Where the patient gets loaded into the chopper - notice not a lot of room for the patient! 

Where the patient is placed

I always wanted to fly! 

EMS'ing it Joburg Style

What an adrenaline filled day I had today. Spent 12 hours with NetCare911, one of the private ambulance services in Johannesburg. So happy I was able to arrange this because it was a good way to see first hand the pre-hospital care system of Joburg and compare it from my experience from volunteering with EMS Cote St-Luc and our partners Urgences Sante. Definitely very different from what is going on in Quebec, I can tell you that from now.

Just a quick summary of how things work here. There is the provincial ambulance service that is run by the government and then you have two private companies; ER24 and NetCare911. Supposedly, the provincial service is run by "paramedics" with BLS training and is not the most reliable service. You can be waiting a very long time for them to come. ER24 and NetCare911 can be called when there is an emergency, however you need to call their respective numbers and of course there is a cost attached with the service. The problem that these two companies are running into is that people are figuring out that the provincial guys aren't too reliable and start calling them but not actually able to afford their services. The private companies are better equipped and have paramedics with several grades of training. They have their primary ambulances that get dispatched to calls and when higher care is required, there are advanced care paramedics driving around in modified, turbo charged cars to attend the call as well. Also, there isn't only 11 people trained in advanced care like some places I know. They usually get there faster because the blitz through the streets at very high speeds (sometimes reaching 180km/hr) and are able to provide the advanced care needed. Another interesting fact is that thye don't work under direct medical control from a doctor but they practice based on their scope of training and they are licensed to do what they are trained to do given the paramedic protocols. More accountability is on the paramedic. There's is also lots of political turmoil, just like any other service/company you can think of.

So my day started at 6:30am, where I met with Robbie at the NetCare911 base. As soon as I saw him, I knew we were going to have an awesome time. Very approachable, nice guy and loves to joke around. This was a big relief because you never know who you will be sitting beside in the car for 12hours. We hung around the base in the morning, he sent me all their protocols by email, showed me around, we did an equipment check, showed me all the drugs they carry! (close to 20 diff drugs) and off we were! The response car we were driving in was a supped (modified) volkswagen hatchback (reminded me of my car back home). Leather interior, manual transmission, lights and sirens and brand new brakes! Today, it was raining almost all day.

Supposedly when it rains, people in South Africa tend to stay in their homes and not cause too much trouble. We started off our slow morning with some coffee and then with a nice tour of Johannesburg while waiting for a call to come in. We visited a few hospitals. It was nice to see other hospitals and what their casualty (ER) area looks like compared to the hospital where I am at now. Bara and Joburg Hospitals are public, the others, you can tell right away are private - most owned by NetCare. We even drove into the rougher areas of Joburg to get a glimpse of what its like. I felt rather safe in an emergency vehicle but slightly stressed when even Robbie closed his window and made sure the doors were locked. We drove through the slums of Soweto and made it into the centre of Hillbrow. These are places where you wouldn't want to be seen in, especially during the night. It's fascinating to see how one point your in a rich area and all of a sudden it felt like I was in rural Ghana just a street away. We even had a chance to stop at Bara hospital. This is where the other trauma centre is located. We walked in and I got to see their huge trauma bay - the rain caused them to have a slow day as only 2 of their possible 20 bed resus bays were filled.

All of a sudden, we got our first call. A simple text message on his phone with location and patient information, along with a small screen in the car that has the same info. We plugged in the address to his Garmin GPS and off we were!  WOW...they really know how to drive. He told me, I'm sure in Canada you guys go only 20km over speed when going lights in sirens but here we tend to ignore that. Zipping down the streets zigzagging through traffic - people are already bad drivers, when you put them with an emergency car, its even worse!!! I filmed a few runs to give you guys an idea of what it was like (check my facebook profile for that). It's amazing the force the car had and the acceleration. We were hitting speeds close to 160-180km/hr, however I felt safe. He was such a great driver, he had to, with 30 years of experience in Joburg and other places like Chad, he was good. We finally reached our call, which happened to be in the Italian Consulate filled with diplomates. An employee there happened to have chest pain and Robbie let me run the call while he helped me out with vitals, monitors, etc...Felt like I was just in Cote St-Luc! We assisted the ambulance once they got there and then freed ourselves to be ready for another call. After that, we went for lunch, drived around some more, lots of talking about Canada and snow and the french. Never a boring moment!

After lunch we both got a little tired, so we head back to base and took a nap. He woke me up saying we got a call where a crew arrived on scene and needed back up. Now it was raining hard and the driving was the same. We arrived to a very rough area in Joburg, can't remember the name of it. It was a building office and on the 5th floor. We got there and there was a man laying on the floor unconscious. He was complaining of some abdominal pain prior and when his boss went to get some help, he returned and found him laying unresponsive. The paramedics on scene were ventilating the patient, had an IV started and monitoring him. The patient was not breathing adequately and Robbie handed me the laryngoscope and endotracheal tube and asked me to intubate the patient. My first pre-hospital intubation was a success and got it in on my first shot. Wasn't too difficult, only Robbie made sure I was laying flat on the floor at the patients head to be able to get a good view of the cords. We packed him up and got him ready for transport. Only problem was, we couldn't fit in the elevator and we didn't have stairchair. So we carried him down 5 floors with the stretcher. We had to switch person every floor because it was too heavy and the stairwell was so narrow that it was very difficult to maneuver. We eventually made it down and got him into the ambulance. We assisted them with transport and I was bagging the patient all the way to Joburg Hospital, where I am doing my trauma elective. We rushed him in to the medicine casualty area and handed over to the docs. Very strange presentation and we didn't really know what was going on. Supposedly he may have taken some alternative medicinal stuff because he was sick the last few days.

We then got ready for the end of our shift and boom, another call came in. Unconscious 35 year old lady in Hillbrow (the bad area). Once on scene, there was an unconscious lady in the middle of the road and lots of people around her watching over. I was told that this looks like a very common presentation of FES (fluttering eye syndrome), you will see what this is from my explanation of the call. Once we assessed the lady, it seems like she may have had some sort of seizure, collapsed and bit her tongue. All her vitals were normal and we were basically observing her. Her eyes were fluttering around and she was responding to us. We talked to her more and coached her breathing, sat her up and eventually walked her to the ambulance. Within 2 mins in there, she was on her phone texting!! Supposedly this happens a lot. Some kind of stressor causes them to have a psychosomatic fit and they behave like they are having seizures but do it for the attention. It was very interesting to see!

That was our last call and we headed back to base. We then went over to visit his gf who is an ER physician at the Milpark hospital (attached to the base). We got coffees and hung out there for a bit. Then it was around 8pm and time to head back home. Got some chicken from Nandos and watched IronMan2 with Li.

What an awesome day. I really had a lot of fun with Robbie. He was an awesome tour guide, teacher and great paramedic. Tomorrow I will be spending a day on with the helicopter EMS with NetCare911. I hope we get to fly :) The weather might be a little yucky and they may cancel all helicopters. If that's the case, Robbie said I can meet up with him and spend the day on the response car again! Very excited for tomorrow, hope I will get to fly in the helicopter. So cool!!

Alright, it's bed time for me now. Here are some pics and check out the video.

Phil

Evie we have 7 days 17 hours and 1 minute 30 seconds until we see each other :)

NetCare Base

Emergency Response Car

Meds...

and more...

Resus bay at a NetCare hospital

Soweto

Soweto

Bara Resus Bay

Hillbrow

Cleaning up after transfer to Johannesburg Hospital

Represent

Robbie and I going lights and sirens to our call

Focused

Equipment

His jump bag filled with toys!! 

Easter Weekend Joburg Style

I would like to wish everyone a Happy Easter, for those who celebrated it this weekend. This year greek Easter happens to fall on May 5th, so another month to go and anxiously waiting for the lamb on the spit. But I was lucky enough to celebrate Easter in South Africa! To all my greek family and friends - make sure to put all your 50% off chocolate in the freezer in order to avoid giving stale chocolate to all the kids next month! Facebook is already filled with status updates from all the greeks so happy to be getting all the chocolate 50% off, it's like we are stealing or something!

So, this has really been a fun filled 4 day holiday weekend in Joburg. Most people were off working, leaving Joburg to visit Durban and other nearby countries, spend time with family, etc... I on the other hand spent 3 nights on call for what was another busy weekend in Trauma at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg General Hospital. Thursday, Friday and Saturday call were exactly what we thought they would be. BUSY and business as usual. Not only was it easter, people were off, drinking, also end of the month when they get paid, which means more drinking and more fighting and filled up trauma bay for us. Again, it's very difficult to talk about all the cases at the hospital that we see. What I can say, is that I can almost 99% say that I have seen it all, or I wish to think I have after spending a month here. The experience you get out here is priceless. The amount of penetrating and blunt trauma you see out here is enormous. Once again the weekend was filled with stabs, stabs, stabs, bottle stabs, bricks to heads, assaults, gun shots and more. I have become close friends with blood. It always seems to be everywhere and anywhere. Of course we take great precautions when dealing with blood here. The scary part is when your drawing blood from a patient or putting in an IV with a large bore needle. Most of the times, the patients are drunk and uncooperative. Arms flailing everywhere and legs kicking. By now, you can draw blood or put IVs in anything because you develop your tricks on how to restrain them and get the job done. Eventually, all these wounds need to be sutured closed. Most of the times I feel like I am putting humpty dumpty back together again. You can sometimes spend hours suturing someone who has 10 wounds on his head, 2 on the chest and one of the back after having put a chest tube in him to decompress his lung that is swimming in blood. You get really good, fast. You learn to suture anything that comes along, anywhere on the body. The only problem is that we often run out of stich packs and sutures. You need to get creative and use whatever you can because there's nothing else available. 

When I said I have seen it all, I really mean that. Stepping away from the traumatic violence we get on a daily basis. This weekend we got 2 pediatric cases - 11 month old and 8 year old. This is not something I have been exposed to much and was happy to see that the team of doctors here were ready and capable to manage these kids properly. They both ended up with good outcomes but it was much more stressful than any of the trauma cases I had seen to date. The first one on Friday night was an 11 month old, ejected from a vehicle after the mom got t boned by another car. Unfortunately the child was in the back seat with his 5 year old brother and both unrestrained. The 11 month old was brought in by helicopter, intubated and full of bruises and unconscious. After several hours of resuscitation and blood transfusions she was transferred to the ped ICU and heard that she's doing well now. It was so frustrating to know that the child was unrestrained in the back seat of the car. It seems like this is very common in SA. There are even programs in place for people to give in their car seats, which they get cleaned and then given to families for free, in order to try and prevent these accidents from happening. The other case was an 8 year old child who had a large gate fall on his head. He was in and out of consciousness and once brought to another hospital first, they had a difficult time intubating the child and securing an airway that they rushed him over to us by ambulance. We got everything ready and had pediatric surgery aware as well. Once the child was brought in to us, everyone was calm, we did our work and successfully intubated the child. Only problem was, after 2 hours, the child woke up and tried to pull the tube out. We all rushed over and had to reintubate him - this ended up being a difficult intubation but we managed to intubate him. Lots of high energy stress, which I love, but I don't like seeing this on kids. Everyone is usually more stressed when dealing with pediatric trauma but the one good thing about kids is that the are so resilient and bounce back very quickly.

My calls are usually from 6pm to around 8pm. I prefer this rather than the 24 hr calls that the other students do at Bara only because I can go in to the hospital 3 nights in a row and get lots of exposure that way. So far, I have been on call almost every weekend and yet still managed to do lots of touring. When I get home from call, I try to sleep until noonish and then do some activities, hang out at the house or just maybe sleep if I am really too tired. Then I go back to work for 6pm. Friday afternoon I had a nice lunch with Alan (my host dad), Clementine and the famous Elvis. Alan made us a nice lunch and we ate outside in the sun. Even got the chance to skype with my family. Elvis was the star attraction. He met my mom, dad, lawrence, Evie and grandparents. Check out the pics below of him.
On the Saturday afternoon post call day, I went to the Orlando Towers in Soweto. Soweto is where Bara hospital is. Soweto is known as South Western Townships, this was a place where most black people back during the apartheid were sent to live in. Now Soweto has a 99.3% black population out of its 860,000 people living there. You don't go walking in Soweto at night alone, it's not safe for that. During the day you are fine. So we visited the famous Orlando Towers, which used to be part of a power plant. They have now been revamped and painted and you can bungee jump in between them, which I didn't because I was too scared. You can also have lunch there. It was amazing!! You pick your meat and they brai (bbq) it for you. It's a nice ambience, lots of people, music, watch people bungee jump. It was a nice afternoon. We then ventured off to a mall there because we need to get some groceries and we knew it was close by. The mall was huge and packed with soooo many people. Li and I though were the only 2 white people walking around there. Very interesting experience! 

My next post call day, Sunday, was easter!! Father Alan Dr. Peter (host dad) had a brai in his backyard and we invited our friends, his family and friends as well. We were around 15 people for lunch and it was so much fun! It was such a beautiful afternoon. We all chipped in and made food. He even made some tirokafteri and greek salad. His tirokafteri was sooo good! I told him that he needs a spit for lamb next time!! We enjoyed great company with his family - his brother, wife and their 3 kids. We drank lots of wine and had great discussions. Alan also happens to be a priest and we got into the conversation about marriage counseling. He gave us a little talk and we were all very attentive, especially me!! He breaks it down into a mnemonic of 6 aspects that the man and woman need to be on the same page at three different stages of relationship. Before marriage, when you have children and when the children leave the nest. His mnemonic is VIPESS. Values, Intellectual, Physical, Emotional, Sexual and Spiritual. He says that for marriage to work, you need to be on the same page for all these aspects at the three different stages of life. They will constantly be tested at these three stages and you need to be able to see eye to eye on all 6 aspects before being able to move on to the next phase. All I can say is that I am even more excited to get married to Evie!! Our first stage is checked off and we are 6/6, ahhhh I love you Evie!!! Anyways, after lunch, we took a nap and had the night off, so we went for drinks on Melville (cute street like st-denis). 

Today was monday, had first full day off in a while. Slept in. Went to the Joburg Zoo. Came back home, took a nap and then went for sushi with friends. Great relaxing day. Tomorrow back at the hospital for 7am. 

This is going to be my last week at the hospital. Time really flies! I actually have 3 more days because on Thursday, I will be doing a shift with the helicopter service. I can't wait! Then on Saturday, we are leaving for a 4 day trip to Cape Town until Tuesday. We got really cheap flights and have heard lots of great things about Cape Town!! Then back on tuesday and wednesday I fly back home and will be back in Montreal after 27 hours of traveling!! 

Don't know if I am ready to leave SA. I wish I had more time to do more touring. Really wish I could have gone camping in a national park with the great big 5 - Lion, Elephant, Leopard, Rhino, Cape Buffalo. Oh well, all another reason for me to come back...maybe this time with Evie :)

Ok, it's bed time...here are some pics that go along with my stories! Enjoy :) 

Phil 

FaceTime with Elvis! 

I want to eat him!! 

Chilling with the nurses! 

One of the Wits med students :)

This is Freddy, one of the medical officers. Love working with him! He put a sticker on his leg asking for hugs. He didn't appreciate me going in for the hug. 

Driving in Soweto - entrance to Bara Hospital. One of the biggest hospitals in the world. It has 3000 beds!! 

Orlando Towers in Soweto

Restaurant in between the towers! 

Every mans dream...meat! 

Looking up...bungeeeeeeeeee

T bone steak, pap, coleslaw and beer!

So happy right now

Li - best housemate from Denmark!

Dinner while on call, going to Nandos for chicken!! 

Uhmm...No guns in the hospital. Guess it's not so straight forward!

Emergency response car. Feel so sorry for Quebec, wow. 

So cool!

Sun rising outside the trauma ambulance bay

Patient log book - look at mechanism. 

Trauma crew

Easter 

Clementine, Elvis, Li and Slie

Father Alan Dr. Peter on the grill

Wine, beer and Coke Zero LOL

Cheers!!

Zoo time - really not the same when you have experience a national park reserve! Don't like the cages

Lions chilling in the grass

Flamingos - can stand for hours on one leg. 

Foot long hot dog - yummy :)

Lepur - scary thing from Madagascar 

Rhinos!

Hungry hungry hippos! 

Wondering where his coca cola is?!

Sharp sharp

I am taking him home with me!!

Sushi dinner

yummy!

Sign on the street!?

Alan showing me his tablecloth when he went camping on a game reserve. Lions approached their camp and they hid inside their trailers as they watched the lions play with their stuff. Tablecloth post lion playing.