Blogs from Papua New Guinea, Oceania - page 5

9th March Rabaul, Papua New Guinea This is a maiden port of call for the Queen Elizabeth and was meant to be a tender, however for some reason a berth became available in Simpson Harbour and we docked at about 8 am on this glorious Sunday morning. This was from the sublime (Airlie Beach) with all its fancy yachts and infrastructure to the ridiculous (Rabaul) a township struggling to survive. Rabaul sits in part of the volatile ‘Ring of Fire’ and suffered its last eruption in 1994. Over 80% of buildings were destroyed during this time and after the eruption the capital was moved to Kokopo about 12 miles away. The violent eruptions of Mt Tavurvur followed by Mt Vulcan on the other side of Simpson Harbour quickly buried the eastern side of Rabaul ... read more

We knew when arriving in PNG that it had a number of cultural groups and over 800 languages. It really took us our whole visit to understand what that means. Each of the places we visited has an entirely different way of living meaning that anything we learned in one area is not necessarily true in the other areas, it was really like visiting 3 different countries. It also means that there is virtually no national identity (except when it comes to the national Rugby League team of course) and loyalties and allegiances are to the tribe and not the country as a whole. This makes the national political situation particularly challenging because for the most part no ones primary concern is the country as a whole. The Trobriand Islands (or “Trobs” as the locals and ... read more

We have to admit that we did minimal research before embarking on this trip. We did know that it would be bloody hot and humid and that we would probably get dirty and smelly. To deal with this we headed to Kmart and bought cheap tshirts and shorts. You can actually buy cute tshirts in Kmart for as low as $3 (although we largely splashed out on the $6 and $8 ones). I suspect these are not made in Australian factories paying Australian minimum wage. Reluctantly I also decided not to bring my down jacket (how can I possibly travel without my down jacket???). We also knew that there was Malaria risk in PNG and did procure malaria tablets. A few days before departing we thought “hmmm, I wonder if we need visas?” and learned that ... read more

Lucky enough to spend a day in Port Moresby, PNG. Was there for work and got to meet some great people. A beautiful country that one day I hope to explore!... read more

Scrubbing In Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of this week I have been with Dr. Jim Radcliffe is surgery. On Tuesday, I got to scrub in for the first time. The procedure was a biliary bypass. The patient had an inoperable tumor obstructing the bile duct from the gallbladder, so Dr. Jim incised and drained the gallbladder, incised the stomach, and then sutured the gallbladder to the stomach so that the bile will now drain into the stomach. During this operation, I got to hold retractors, clamps, and sutures, suction blood and bile, and once Dr. Jim was finished suturing the fascia, he left to fill in the patient's charts and I stapled the epidermis back together. Other operations I saw on Tuesday included two tubal ligations, a finger amputation, and a colostomy. Wednesday was a day ... read more