My Work of Late

What I've been doing lately:
-Working with one of the district hospitals to revamp their entire record keeping and statistics department. Medical records in this country are a wreck, sometimes nonexistent and often incomplete if they are there.
-Helping one of the district hospitals to put systems in place so that they will pass the next round of Government accreditation. No single hospital in this country was accredited after the last round, but before you think about that as being scary, it should be put into context. The accreditation came up suddenly, and many of the indicators tend to be arbitrary and based on developed country standards. As well, some indicators are completely not contextualized. An example of this is maternal death. The indicator asks "How many maternal deaths were there?" It does not factor in size or function of the hospital. It's a raw score rather than any kind of percentage based on a rational denominator.
-Meeting with District Health Management Teams (DHMT) to understand what they are working on, what their operational plans are and how we can be of assistance. The DHMTs were formed by the Ministry (MOHSW), in order to move forward with decentralization.
-Still clarifying sections of the IFC report that will inform the operator of the soon to be built new referral hospital
- Still organizing the Problem Solving for Better Hospitals workshop to occur in two weeks. And following-up with participants from the last workshop
-Writing a research proposal to submit to the MOHSW to conduct research at the QEII hospital

These are all individually huge projects, so I'm trying to give each as much focused attention as I can. It's difficult, which is why I work really long days, but for the most part it's been extremely rewarding. There's definitely things that I'd rather put on someone else's plate, but I'm sure you all say the same things about your jobs as well :)

In addition to all of this, I've been asked to do some epidemiological consulting work for an orphanage way out on the way to Sani Pass (the one where we dropped off clothes last weekend). It's completely undefined at this point, and nothing may come of it, but I'm having a phone call today to see if I can be of assistance (and if I have the time).

We went out to Mimmo's last night for dinner. I had sangria with apples and a big salad. It was really only the 4th or 5th time I've eaten out over the past month. (Month! Can you believe I've been here for a month?!) The group was Sarah, Michael (an ER resident working in Leribe for 3 weeks from Boston), Sue (a OB/GYN clinical volunteer working in Leribe) and Sarah, Sue's 16 yr old daughter. Sue and Sarah go back to the States on Wednesday. Michael just got here a couple of days ago.

Tonight there is a dinner/dance at the International School around the corner from our house. It's supposed to be a really fun party, so we're all planning on going. And then there's talk of a hike tomorrow. Depending on how much work I get done today, I'll hopefully be walking around outside all day tomorrow :)

If anyone feels like sending me anything, I'd happily take a variety of Luna Bars. Since I've been on the move here so much, they've been a great portable thing to have, but I'm running low. Again, things have to be sent to Boston to travel over with the next person coming out (there are a few in March), so I can email you the address if you feel so inclined.