returning to my second home

In the wee hours tomorrow morning, I will begin the long journey back to Rwanda. This will be my last month-long visit as a CASIEF volunteer, although no doubt I will return for shorter visits and to help with specific programs.

The CASIEF-Rwanda program started in 2006, when there were only a few anesthesiologists in the the country. There are now 18 anesthesiologists and another 40 residents in training. With collaboration among partners in Rwanda, Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Scotland, great strides have been made in the past 12 years. This has included building an anesthesia training curriculum, establishing a multi-disciplinary simulation centre, training over 150 non-physician anesthetists (who provide most anesthesia care away from the urban centres) in SAFE Obstetric anesthesia, implementing a pain management program in Butare (the vast majority of this done by Dr Gaston, who has received international recognition for his accomplishments) and development of the Vital Anesthesia Simulation Training (VAST) Course (a 3-day course of essential anesthesia practices and non-technical skills designed for low-resource settings: https://vastcourse.org). This has come from the hard work of many dedicated individuals; it has been a pleasure to collaborate with all of them. Anesthesia in Rwanda has gone from being one of the least desired specialties to one where the best applicants are selected. The residents are well-qualified and committed to building an excellent anesthesia department. Former residents are now the leaders. I feel fortunate to have been involved in this work.

As usual, I have a big team coming and a long "to do" list. The team this year will be Dave (Dal global health fellow), Stephen (Dal anesthesia resident), Chris (Toronto anesthesia resident and the Lucky Iron Fish developer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Lf6glgKt3Q), Mary (pain specialist who will come for a week for a pain conference) and Jon (Dal regional anesthesia fellow who has made a few previous teaching visits to Rwanda). In addition to the Monday academic program and OR teaching, we will follow up on a research evaluation of the VAST Course and present at the first pain management conference to be held in Rwanda (organized by Gaston). After three weeks in Rwanda, we will travel to Addis Abba, Ethiopia, where CASIEF has started a new partnership for anesthesia resident education. In Ethiopia, we will run a VAST Facilitator Course, so that Ethiopian anesthesiologists can teach VAST in the future, and also teach a VAST Course. I've never been anywhere in Africa other than Rwanda (not counting Nairobi airport) so it will be interesting to visit Addis Abba.

I won't be arriving in Kigali until late Saturday afternoon and it always takes a while to get up and running. Please look for the next blog post early next week. I am grateful to all of you who follow the blog and offer your support.

xo
Patty