Monkey Brain Musings

 Hello dear friends and followers! Many of you have reached out to me, concerned about future trips and funding, considering the dramatic and horrific changes being made within our current government. I have much to catch you up on but let me begin by letting you know that the primary funding for MHI (Mother Health International) comes from an organization based in Australia. As of now, our funding and training programs are secure!  so, let the catch up begin! For those of you just joining us, and those of you that need a recap, I am now working directly with Mother Health International ( Mother Health ) and Rachel Zaslow. Here's a brief introduction and profile... Dr. Rachel Zaslow's career as a Registered Midwife in Sub-Saharan Africa spans 20 years with a focus on strengthening maternal health care systems in resource poor areas. Her area of expertise is in developing midwifery models of care that blend clinical excellence with culturally specific practice for improving hea...

Saturday, November 1, 2024 Hello from Entebbe! This afternoon I will fly to Dubai, where I plan to spend a few days reuniting with friends, before flying home on the 6th.  Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were spent training. We had a couple of patients with dramatically low fluid. They were all treated at the birth center for dehydration with IV fluids and rescanned the following day. So many of the women that come in are dehydrated and have often been leaking fluid for quite some time before coming in for assessment. As I mentioned (ad nauseum), the women in Uganda do most of the labor of daily living, including carrying all of the water in large 20L jerry cans. As their pregnancy progresses, they are often exhausted and in physical pain, so they stop drinking water. Drinking less water means carrying less water. They also may be leaking fluid, but they may not have anyone to help take care of their other children, so they stay at home. 2 of the mothers had a mild increase in fluid...

Sunday, October 26, 2024 It’s a cool, slightly overcast morning here, a nice change from the increasing heat during the day. It’s wild to think that my trip here is almost finished! I will have three more days of scanning, Thursday will be hands-on evaluation day, then Friday I will take a small plane from Gulu to Entebbe. I will spend the night in Entebbe and fly to Dubai on Saturday afternoon. Rachel will be leaving tomorrow, for a conference in Kampala, then another conference in Kenya. It’s been great having her here and we have had continuous conversations about past, current, and future trainings. We spend a lot of time talking about how to optimize the training, problem solving, and how to best support the midwife community in Northern Uganda. It’s great to work with someone who is so supportive and appreciative, and flexible. It’s counterproductive to be too rigid here, which is why I am continuously working on my curriculum materials and adding necessary lectures. Sister...

Monday, October 21, 2024 Happy Monday! Friday morning, the midwives wrapped up the lectures with a written exam. I wrote the exam to focus on clinical cases and relevancy, ultrasound image identification, and just enough physics to be useful. I do not time my exams, which eliminates a lot of unnecessary anxiety, and everyone was done within the hour. The lowest score was 87%, each of them doing very well, although they are all still struggling with critical thinking and problem-solving skills. I graded the exams during the lunch break, we reviewed the exam after lunch, and they were able to take off early for the weekend. Three of the midwives went back to their homes in Gulu for the weekend, one of them is a midwife here at the birth center and lives here with her children when she is scheduled to work.  Rachel arrived mid-afternoon, which made everyone happy at the birth center. She flew into Gulu on a very small plane, and sent her luggage by bus, which arrived on Saturday. For ...