Long Live The Sar

I haven't yet posted an update on my daily life this summer, so here's a brief summary of the past few days. Monday - I woke up Monday and had to move out of the JDC house where I've been staying into a hotel because the house was being fumigated for suspected bedbugs. I don't think we had any, but I wasn't the one getting bit so I can't say for sure. After breakfast, I went to the " Red Terror " Martyr Museum near Meskel Square. This new museum commemorates the 2 million people killed during the regime of the communist Derg (1974-1991) and the 500,000 killed between 1977-1978. The museum has many photos and some interesting points, but is unfortunately a little light on details and doesn't give enough background information. However, it's still relatively new (1 year), so I'll give it a break. My pseudo-tour guide was a nice middle-aged man who had actually been imprisoned for 8 years by the Derg, and he had shared a cell with one ...

Friday and Saturday were spent with Rick seeing patients at the Mission. As usual, the days were jam-packed and went from 9:30-4, without any breaks. I still can't figure out how Rick survives most days without eating or drinking. The majority of patients were spine or heart patients, but it is extremely exciting to hear a heart murmur and be able to say something other than "yeah, hmmm, it sounds like water rushing through a pipe." Among the more interesting cases, there is a patient with potential Wilson's disease, a child with Madura head, and a child with Windswept Syndrome. Crazy, crazy stuff. It's odd how normal it seems to see a patient with TB of the spine with a shape like a > or worse. I have been spending a lot of time with Rick's boys, which has been a total blast. They are the warmest, kindest, most fun group of teenagers I have hung out with since the 10th grade. Semegnew, Dejene, and Mesfin are all home for the summer and we have sp...

Nearly every day someone asks me if I'm sad to be leaving Addis in 4 days, and I always have mixed feelings. One month was a perfect introduction time for getting acquainted with the city. My hesitation lies in the fact that I'm not sure how much of my love for the place is for the place itself, and how much of it is for the mystery that is Ethiopia. It is not easy for a culture to seem as disjointed, inefficient, and quasi-modern and so trying to figure out how it got this way, and how it works at all, is a daily fascination. I have loved my last 4 weeks here but even now, I am unsure how much of it is my love for the city and how much of it is my love for the adventure and the mystery of Ethiopia. I am excited to get home and spend some time just sitting and relaxing and relfecting (and not having to deal with beggars every 10 seconds), but I will miss it here. The pace of life, the kindness of the people, the friends I've made, the exchange rate, and my friends at...

I've been meaning to write a post on this topic for a while, but it's a daunting subject. Expect revisions to come! To understand the practice of medicine in Ethiopia, you first have to understand the country's condition. My take - Ethiopia has been in the dark for the last 30 years and is now trying to match modern innovations with the old technology/infrastructure. This feeling is prevalent everywhere in the country, from the Mission, to the internet cafes, to the hospitals, and the banks. They build 10 story buildings, but the scaffolding is made from tree branches 20 feet long nailed together, not a single one thicker than my arm, and some as crooked as a question mark; it sways in the wind and it's amazing that it stands up at all. Internet cafes are everywhere with brand new computers, but internet no faster than 40 kbps (slower than old dial-up). Government officials drive brand new Cadillac Escalades but there are holes in the street 2 feet deep. MRI's...

I haven't been doing too much work in the dressing room in the last 3 days because of the sudden presence of ~5 british/french/european volunteers. They have kind of taken over the dressing room (we won't discuss the new level of patient care) and so the last two days have been an interesting departure from the routine. Yesterday, Jake, Zev, Mekais (an Ethiopian starting his 2nd year @ Harvard Med), and I followed Dr. Germa on his rounds through the mission. His cases aren't as complicated as Rick's but he sees the more severe cases of some of the more unique diseases. A short list of the things we saw yesterday: ~Parkinson's ~Leprosy - as with everything else here, a text book example. ~An Abdominal Cyst that dominated the lower half of her abdominal cavity - It was so large such that looked pregnant, but b/c it was so large they were unable to find where it originated from in the ultrasound, maybe the ovaries ~Scabies ~A Leopold exam on a lady who was 30+ weeks pr...

One of the most interesting things about practicing medicine here is that you see a lot of textbook cases. Because most of the patients don't seek care until their disease/infection has progressed to a very severe stage, most of the cases we see, when we look it up in the Merck Manual, are exactly what the textbook describes (if the disease goes untreated). With the two newly arrived med students - zev and jake - we've been looking up many things in the Merck Manual, which is only mildly helpful because the cases are only covered by the last sentence of every entry that starts, "if left untreated..." It is very interesting to see what can happen to the body if nothing is done to help heal it.

I went to the Mission for the first time at night, last night. I know I've written about what the mission is like during the day, but at night, the main difference is that on every empty space of cement under a roof, people are sleeping on thin mattresses, packed so tightly together that they overlap. As I've said before, the conditions here are like something you would see in a picture, but not in real life...it's amazing what the people consider a normal standard of living here.

I've been referring a lot to "the mission" but realize that I haven't given an idea of what it's like. The Mother Theresa Mission is located down the street from Sidist Kilo. Keep in mind that there are only about 10 streets in the whole city with names so it is difficult to give good directions. The Street Both sides of the street are lined with storefronts selling laminating-copying-faxing services, camera film, fruit, convenience store items, and restaurants (and that just what I can see out the window of this internet cafe/office supplies store). Parked blue Toyota Taxis (think 1980 style sedan) line both sides of the street waiting for passengers and dumptrucks (sometimes filled w/people sitting on the rim), buses, SUV's, personal sedans, and donkeys/cows/goats share the road. The sidewalks consists of uneven bits of broken concrete, jagged rocks, and dirt. There is a gate with the words "Mother Theresa Mission" and inside a little dr...