Arjun in Kakamega

RECAP OF THE DAY:  Woke up leisurely, went into town, re-stocked on peanut butter and jelly, went to the pool at Golf Hotel, hung out with everyone else, did a lot of work, realized how much I have left to do, showed everyone the database I designed using Access, everyone is duly impressed (trust me – it’s awesome), go find more bootlegged DVDs (they actually work here, so there’s limited risk involved, although once Josh bought a DVD supposedly with a bunch of Tom Cruise and Keano Reaves movies on it and it turned out to be a single season of a Spanish soap opera – not translated), matatued back, go home, work out, throat feeling a little weird so had some hot tea, worked, watched some 24, coerced the cat to come into my room to hunt down any cockroaches and eat them, more work, sleep.

REFLECTION

Only one week left!  And as exciting as that is, it’s also pretty terrifying, because I have a LOT left to do.  Sleep is now a low priority.  I have to finish the patient wait time survey write-up, finish the training materials for the emergency responsiveness project to leave behind at the hospital, finish up the database, get the network connection working, set that up, and write a final report for FSD.  Most of this must be done before Wednesday.  Now you can understand why I haven’t blogged for the past week.

I’m really excited about the patient database, because it’s something that I think has great potential not only to help the hospital immediately but also for future interns to come and tweak to make even better.  Aside from making reports easier to create and keep track of patient histories in a more effective way, the network will also help because it will prevent the hospital from having to purchase huge amounts of official record books from the ministry.

This project, like all of the things I’ve been doing in the last couple of weeks, is primarily designed and implemented with a “ball’s in your court” attitude.  I began these projects obsessing about the community buy-in and how receptive the staff would be to using the network or retraining others in the community in emergency responsiveness.  Lately, though, I’ve come to realize that my conscience is clear if I give the community all the tools and resources it needs to be able to sustain the project.  I can’t control whether they choose to or not.  Why should I beg them to use a computerized network?  After all, it is designed to help them, not me.  I feel like my moral obligation ends at setting up the network, designing an easy-to-use database, and instructing them on its use and how it can make their life easier.  After that, I can rest easy knowing that I did everything I could to make their record-keeping more efficient, accurate, and useful.  It’s up to them whether or not they want to use it.

As much as I’ve loved my time here, I am looking forward to going back home.  This final week will hopefully provide some closure over the many ideas, projects, and realities I’ve had and faced over the past two months.

I’ll try to keep up blogging, but as you must understand my list of to-dos is extensive, so I make no promises.  What I DO promise, however, is that all my generous donors will soon have a full description of exactly what their money provided to the community and how thankful the community is for these donations.