We've had a busy few days. Amélie has had to step in on a couple of intraoperative emergencies. She is quite amazed at the different disease profile in Rwanda - severe single system disease in otherwise healthy patients.
Michelle is having great success with her perioperative nursing course. The nurses have told her it is the best course they've ever attended. It might seem incredible but there are hardly any scrub nurses in the operating rooms. We were involved in anesthesia for a surgery that took 8 hours and there was no scrub nurse. The surgeon had to find all his instruments from a tray. It would be wonderful if Michelle's course helps improve this void.
We have been at Rwanda Military Hospital where our friend, Christian, is working. Christian and colleagues have set up a pain service. This is completely impressive. We had a planning meeting last year and I suggested they needed to establish a pain management team. They have done it! They received a lot of help from British pain specialists and people from Aga Khan. On Wednesday I attended acute pain rounds with Christian, two designated pain management nurses, a psychologist and the ward charge nurse. We did a fairly in-depth assessment of two patients. Today Christian brought in one of his outpatients with chronic pain and assessed her together. I am thrilled that the pain service has been established. There is an aspiration to make Rwanda Military Hospital a centre of excellence in pain management.
Tomorrow we are back in the OR at CHUK and then we will be running the first week of the Teaching and Learning Course in the afternoon. This is a course that Ruth and I developed in Halifax to strengthen teaching skills for anesthesia residents and staff. I truly hope this will help build confidence in teaching so that Rwandan anesthesiologists will eventually not need Canadian volunteer teachers. I will just keep coming to see my friends.
We are leaving for Gisenyi for a weekend adventure tomorrow afternoon. Paradis Malahide, here we come...
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