Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Here in Botswana...
I've arrived!
Almost a year ago, while visiting my college buddy Nate Hellman & his wife Claire in their apartment in Paris, we discussed international medicine. Nate had gone to Botswana, Africa for a medical rotation during residency at Penn, and had an incredible experience.
Wow. Now I'd never been to Africa, and always wanted to visit. In our college Anthropology class, I'd daydream of sifting through the sands of the Olduvai Gorge for clues into ancient hominid life. Now, as a resident myself, the thought of practicing medicine in Africa - and, particularly in an AIDS-ravaged country like Botswana, where 40% of adults have HIV - inspired me to want to take the next step. As much as I've always wanted to visit this great continent, I've wanted to do it with a purpose... and here was a great chance to do so. If only Stanford had an international program in sub-Saharan Africa!
Now, to its credit, Stanford is working on it. We met last month with Peter Piot, from UNAIDS, who is advising Stanford on how to set up a major international effort. But this won't happen in time for me. Fortunately for me, UPenn has been generous in allowing Stanford residents to participate in their program, and Nate helped to get me in touch with the right people.
Scroll forward almost a year, and after months of planning and packing, getting vaccines and Malaria pills, and stocking up on essential medical supplies like IV catheters with the help of some wonderful nurses at Stanford, I embarked on my 42-hour voyage from San Francisco to Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana.
My travels took me through Paris and Johannesburg, South Africa. In Jo'burg, I encountered the first Flight Departures board I'd seen in my lifetime without a single flight to anywhere near the United States of America:
Then it was off on the 50-minute flight to Gaborone, on South African Airlines. After landing we taxi'd up alongside an Air Botswana plane - a handsome little plane, and my first evidence that I was, indeed, in Botswana.
This is the first entry of my first blog. Here I'll chronicle my experiences in Botswana, both in the Princess Marina Hospital and on wilderness adventures in this country's vast wildlife reserves (think lions, hyena... and over 120,000 elephants).
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