It seems as though every week is the start of a whole new, exciting internship. This week we are doing site visits to various hospitals in order to collect data on oxygen concentrators and hypothermia. To do this, we split up into teams of two. I am partnered with Brighton. Our plan is to go to Malamulo Hospital for three days and then Mulanje for two.
We are starting with Malamulo and spent the day Monday at the hospital. Malamulo is a really nice district hospital. It took about two hours to drive to from the Polytechnic and the last half of the drive is on a super bumpy, but really beautiful road through tea plantations.
Monday was all about introductions! Without a good intro, we would never have the chance to really get the data we want and wander the wards as we please. We met with the head surgeon, Dr. Hayton (he is from California like me). He is super nice and was very excited to have us look around and help improve the technologies. He especially liked that we came from a local school and that Brighton has the potential to come back even after the summer! Dr. Hayton gave us a quick tour of the hospital and told us where all the oxygen concentrators were located. He also gave us a lot of information on other technologies that have not worked for them in the past and we found out that their main method of preventing hypothermia was using Kangaroo Mother Care. After our tour, we then were given the freedom to wander the halls and look at the concentrators and how hypothermia is being treated at a nice, slow pace without keeping people from their work.
A key thing that Dr. Hayton mentioned was how some people come to the hospital to do research, take their data, leave, and never come back. This is definitely not something we want to do. Our goal is to establish connections and actively try to help the hospital in the end if we are able to come up with some solutions. Of course, my first task as a student and intern is to learn as much information as I can, but if in the process I am able to help just a little to improve the oxygen concentrators or find some simple solution to help with hypothermia, then that is even better!
Working with Brighton has been great. Here is a picture of us outside of Malamulo during our lunch break:
He is helping me be more confident in my abilities. Matt mentioned before we went on our site visits that confidence is the most important tool for gaining access to the different parts of the hospital. I was super nervous when we were first trying to establish connections in the hospital, but Brighton was very good about being optimistic and motivating which is the right attitude to have when it comes to tackling our two projects. Overall, Monday was a very successful first day at the hospital! We established the connections that will now let us conduct our research for the rest of our days at Malamulo. I know we cannot fix all of the problems at these hospitals, and we definitely cannot fix anything in just three days. But hopefully the knowledge we gain from our observations this week and the time spent during the rest of the summer developing the projects will help solve just one small problem.