"Obama Land"

On Tuesday I had my first glimpse of what will soon be my new home. The Botswana-Baylor Children's Center of Clinical Excellence is located in Gabarone (the capital of Botswana). The goal of our program is "capacity building" aka training local doctors to take over our jobs. Much of this work has been done in Gabarone and now we are spreading the training to surrounding regions. There is already a PAC doctor based in Francistown and each week doctors from our center go to surrounding clinics to train, precept, and troubleshoot. But, as you can see from the map below, it is hard to reach all of the country from Gabarone. The program decided that they wanted to place a PAC doctor permanently in Serowe and hopefully eventually in Maun. I have volunteered to go to Serowe. It is about 320 km from Gabarone (about 3 hours away).
Serowe is the town where the first, and also the current (son of the first), President of Botswana is from. It is also the adopted home of Bessie Head (famous writer whose books include Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind - on my "after the boards reading list")

I went to tour Serowe with Dr. Joel who has been going to Serowe for a few days each month to begin the training at their clinic and assist with care of their pediatric patients. The drive to Serowe proved to be quite interesting. We passed the Tropic of Capricorn and stopped for a photo-op, saw tons of cattle and goats, drove alongside the Botswana railroad (which now only carries freight), and talked all about Botswana politics, American politics, the two health care systems etc. I also learned a lot about the residency programs in Ireland as that is where Dr. Joel did his training. The biggest surprise came on the road between Mahalapye and Palapye when we had a tire blow out. The tire was reduced to shreds! Luckily people in Botswana are very friendly and helpful and a nice man stopped and helped us change the tire. It is very fortunate that Dr. Joel is such a good driver and that people are so helpful because the rest stops look like this...
There is usually a sign with a picture of a tree on it and underneath is written "1 km" with an arrow. Then 1 km later will be the sign pointing to the tree. I saw many of these signs and kept wondering why there were signs pointing to trees. Finally I asked Dr. Joel and he told me that they are rest stops. Under the tree is a small table with a bench and people can pull off the road to rest under the tree and eat (especially good in the summer when it is very hot ;)

Finally we arrived in Serowe! The hospital is magnificent. It is about 1 yr old. The government of Botswana built 5 district hospitals last year, (Serowe was one of them). Their plan is that if they build the infrastructure then the doctors will be more willing to come and work there. Botswana started a medical school this year so in 4 yrs there will be a new cadre of doctors and they will have wonderful facilities. However, for the time being, the hospitals are not very full and relying on help from foreign doctors.
Above is the second floor of the lobby. To the left the view of the front of the hospital. And on the right one of the patient floors. It is truly a gorgeous facility. There is currently one pediatrician who is from Cuba. His English is really not very good, so I will get to practice my Spanish after all ;) Everyone was very excited to meet me and hear that I would be working with them. Many said "when are you starting? Tomorrow?" I will likely be spending some of my time at this hospital and some of my time doing outreach to surrounding sites. I will move once my house is ready. We looked at a couple of places and I found one that is suitable. It just needs a couple of adjustments, as the last tenants just moved out, and it needs a security system. So depending on how fast things happen, (which is not very fast here), I will likely be moving in a few weeks. (Dr. Joel took the pictures so they will follow shortly).

You are probably all wondering about the title of this post (that is if you are still reading since it is quite lengthy ;) Well on Wednesday morning I was introduced to all of the medical officers, head nurses, and administrators of the hospital. Dr. Joel said I was a pediatrician from the United States. The superintendent of the hospital said "You are most welcome from Obama land!" It is so nice to finally have a president that I (and everyone here) is proud of ;)