Sim Centre Opening: teaching, ice cream and monkeys

The sky is overcast, promising more rain. Dramatic lightening, thunder and intermittent heavy rain in the past few days. Ravens are scratching frantically on the roof. The air is rich with the earthy smells of last night’s rain. A cleaner is mopping up while listening to tunes on the radio. Large thermoses of coffee and hot milk are coming. Morning in Butare.

Butare offers fabulous teaching opportunities, orderly operating rooms and relative calm. This helps compensate for the limited food options, cold showers and don’t get me started on the Credo Hotel rats. Hence, we stay at Mont Huye.

Jeanne, Theo and now Gaston, have provided steady leadership so the operating rooms have a sense of being under control. Delightful. Yesterday, Tristan helped his colleagues anesthetize a 5 day-old baby for two-hour surgery – smooth anesthesia and a good outcome.

In the afternoons, we gather a small group of residents for discussions on anesthesia topics. They love it. They are coming in post call, as they are so eager to receive teaching. We’ve relocated the venue to Inzozi Nyziza (the ice cream shop) so the discussions are augmented by ice cream, coffee and the ever-present Fanta citrone.

Gaston has stepped into the role of staff anesthesiologist beautifully. He has an onerous call load, as he and Theo are the only two anesthesiologists in Butare. This means they are each on call half the time. Unfortunately, Gaston’s wife and children live one hour east of Kigali. This means Gaston can only be with them every other weekend. Clearly, this is far from ideal. Tristan and I had dinner last night with Gaston and discussed potential solutions. His family needs to be with him.

We are heading back to Kigali tomorrow afternoon. Matt is arriving late tonight. It will be great to catch up with him and his family.