Saturday, May 13, 2023

Whew! I can't believe it's Saturday already! Our second group of trainees arrived late Wednesday evening and we have hit the ground running. The trainers meet every evening to discuss the day, resolve any issues, and make any necessary changes before the next day. We have all been commenting on the differences between this group and the previous group, both in the trainees and the trainers. This group is primarily men, with one woman, all of them practitioners. Most of them are young, energetic and enthusiastic and much quicker to engage than the last group. We also feel that we (the trainers) are also a contributing factor. We have worked out some of the "kinks" with the first group and we are much more relaxed and focused in giving our lectures, we have also made some changes in the hands-on training that have worked out very well, allowing this group to progress a bit faster. We are becoming more cohesive as a training team, allowing us to support each other and contribute to one another during our lectures and hands-on training. 

The second group of trainees

I mistakenly assumed I would have more free time with this group, because I made 7 new lectures for the morning recap and review for the last group. The joke is on me! This group is so quick, with a slightly stronger knowledge of anatomy, that I have been adapting my lectures, increasing the review material and the number and difficulty of the quiz questions. I am happy to say they are rising to the challenge and doing incredibly well! I am also starting to work on additional lectures to leave with the trainers, so they can continue working with the trainees when they are back in the field. They have given me an extensive list and I am hoping to have at least a few of them completed before I leave, the rest I will finish at home and send to them later. My lectures included an excessive amount of images which I retrieve from the internet, with our spotty Wi-Fi I am often frantically looking for images whenever it is on, saving them in a folder on my computer for later.  I am still usually awake hours before everyone else and work on lectures until the group arrives for breakfast at 8am, I always give the first lecture of the day to review the previous day's lectures, and often when the others are lecturing, I am still working away at my computer. When everyone takes a break before dinner, I continue working. It's exhausting, but the end result is so satisfying, and I feel a great deal of pressure to leave them with as many resources as I can!

When I was training in Uganda, I immediately noticed the lack of supplies at all of the clinics, especially the lack of towels. If you have ever had or seen an ultrasound, we use towels to tuck into the patients clothing in order to keep the gel from getting all over their clothes. These clinics were forced to use toilet tissue or nothing at all. In a report from a John Hospkins research team (2015) " major hospitals across the U.S. collectively throw away at least $15 million a year in unused operating room surgical supplies that could be salvaged and used to ease critical shortages, improve surgical care, and boost public health in developing countries." It's maddening the number of used and unused surgical towels I have seen thrown away at every facility I have worked at! When I returned from my last trip, I began collecting surgical towels at every location I worked at, would bring them home to be cleaned and stored until my next trip. The cost of shipping the towels was astronomical, so I planned to bring them back to Africa one overstuffed suitcase at a time. My garage is full of plastic containers filled with blue towels and I was determined to bring as many as possible on this trip, along with extra ultrasound gel. 

The largest suitcase I own, filled to weight capacity with blue towels!

The challenge was the difference in luggage and weight allowance between the flight to Uganda on Emirates Air and the much smaller plane that took me to Kenya. All of the clinics that ITW visits are in need of towels, so approximately 2/3 of the towels were left at the office in Uganda, to be used by any of the trainers traveling to the outlying clinics. We managed to divide and pack the other 1/3 into our bags to bring to Kenya. We have been using the towels during our training and at the end of the course, we will be able to divide the towels and give them to the trainees to take back to their clinics. My plan is to always bring at least one large suitcase full of towels on all of my future trips. 

Each of the participating clinics will be able to take almost 20 towels
 and extra gel back to their clinic at the end of training. 

We are keeping the cleaning staff busy with our laundry!

I have been asked to post more photos on the ITW Instagram and Facebook accounts. I have asked the team to answer some questions and share some of their background and I thought it would be fun to also share that information with you. I will be posting their profiles here and I encourage any of you who use social media to follow the ITW accounts and show your support. 

Back to work and Wi-Fi willing I will be able to post this sometime today, at the moment it is down. UGH. Thanks for sharing this incredible trip with me!

Much love, Jo (MB)