Community placement

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We have been in flux for the past few days. We were uncertain we would be making it to our community placement due to strikes at the university delaying the program and then it was unclear we would if we would be attending the leadership training. It was finally decided that we would go to Rugazi with a couple of Ugandan students who had done the program last year and stay until the end of the week. We then return to mbarara for one week of leadership training before returning for three weeks of placement with this years Ugandan students.
We have been in Rugazi for five days. We have been spending our mornings working in the health clinic. I have spent most mornings following the Doctor(Dr. Amber) who is here supervising the medical students who have also come from the U of S. I found that this was the most applicable to veterinary medicine. The overlap between the medical cases in the hospital and the material I’ve learned in the past few months of school has been quite encouraging. I spent one of our mornings in the lab which was also encouraging in regards to how much overlap there was with material I have covered in class. One of the more exciting procedures I watched was a seserian section preformed in the operating room of the health centre. Some of the process was very reminiscent of the surgeries I have watch in vet clinics in Canada. This is also very encouraging in regards to learning a lot of veterinary relevant things while in the clinics.
In Rugazi we were joined by a couple of Ugandan students who had participated in the program last year. Ken just finished his 5th year of medical school and Resty just finished her medical laboratory technician program. Both are fantastic people and we all made friends very quickly. Both were very helpful in the clinics and our experience in community would have been totally different without them. Their ability to translate for us as we communicated with the clients was absolutely essential. I really wonder what our experience will be like when we return without them.
Our afternoons have been spent in the community mostly being toured around by one of the local VHT(Village Health Technician)’s, named Davina. She has been very helpful in terms of connecting us with some of the local people who have welcomed us into their homes and given us a bit of an understanding of some of the health concerns of the community.

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