So what exactly are you doing in Malawi? An interview with myself about my time in Malawi.

Where are you exactly?

Malawi is a very small country in the south east part of Africa. I’m in Blantyre (denoted by the tiny green dot in the southern part)- the second biggest city in Malawi and not to be confused with the capital city.

How long will you be there?
9.5 weeks total, returning to the US the first week of August

Where are you working?
Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital

You’re not a doctor (yet), what are you doing?
A variety of things!

1. Working on the CPAP study: Elizabeth and Caroline, my two fellow interns, and myself have joined an existing staff of people working on a clinical trial of a medical device (the Pumani bCPAP that basically helps babies breath- let me know if you want a more technical or elaborate explanation). This means that we do a variety of tasks from decomissioning and disposing of old models to entering data in Excel and other random tasks.
2. Shadowing doctors and nurses: Getting to be on the wards has been my favorite part of working at the hospital. We start every day by attending the pediatric handover meeting and then can go watch care be delivered. This is cool because we get to see the CPAPs in use and important for number 3 below.
3. Needs finding: Every year teams of students at Rice develop medical devices for low resource settings around the world. Part of my job as an intern is to keep my eyes and ears open to potential project ideas to present to clinicians and the Rice 360 team.
4. An individual project: Hardest part so far, coming up with my individual project. I have some ideas, and have started researching them to see if they might be good. Stay tuned.

What is it like living in Africa?
Amazing! I have absolutely loved being here. We walk to buy groceries at the market, work on learning Chichewa, the local language here, and avoid the lions that prowl the streets. To clarify for those now concerned about my safety: there are no lions (or really any animals other than chickens) on the streets of Blantyre. We are, however, going to a wild game reserve this weekend!

What’s a normal day like?
Generally I wake up, get ready for the day, and then walk down the road to the main part of the lodge for breakfast. At 7:30 people start walking toward the shuttle cuing the chugging of tea and coffee and inhalation of toast and we leave for the hospital shortly after. (Yes there is a free shuttle from where I am living to where I am working, yes it is incredibly convenient).

At the hospital the other interns and I participate the the variety of activities listed above and stop for lunch (taking the traditional hour and a half off has not been much of a struggle for us)- usually we eat from the Malawian buffet for a full 650MK (less than a dollar). The bus then leaves again at 5pm to take us back to Kabula Lodge.

Evenings are pretty low key as we cook dinner, spend time with the other interesting people staying at Kabula, sometimes watch a movie or read my book, sometimes do work, and occasionally fight an unexpected circumstance such as power outage, minor flooding, or the inability to get keys to our room (a great story there if you’re interested).

Anyway, I’m having a pretty great time here and learning a ton both through conversations and just observing. Thanks for letting me share a little bit with you!