Friday: The World Cup started today! Everyone here is going absolutely crazy!
This morning, I met with Dr. Lineo (the associate director of the clinic), Dr. Paul (a Baylor doctor who works closely with the pharmacy), and Dr. Rajni about the BTB technologies I have brought with me. They were really excited about everything I brought! I will describe each technology separately.
Dosing Syringes: I brought with me around 450 dosing clips and syringes. Essentially, the clip limits how far the plunger can be pulled back and the size of the clip determines the dose given. The dosing clips allows the mothers/caretakers of the HIV-positive children to always give the correct dose, which is important for medications such as ARVs, where >95% adherence is vital to the effectiveness of the treatment. I brought 50 1.2cc clips (used with 3cc syringes), 100 1.5cc clips (3cc syringes), 100 1.5cc clips (5cc syringes), and 200 2.5cc clips (5cc syringes). The doctors were really excited about this project; in fact, I think the idea for it came from this clinic. The most common dosing size for ARVs is 1.5cc and for multi-vitamin is 2.5cc, so those should be really useful. The 1.2cc doses are only applicable to some patients, but the doctors believe that they can use those also. Not only were the doctors excited, the pharmacist was ecstatic also. Everyone thinks that this may really help with ARV adherence. The only concern is that the syringes they use at the clinic are different from the ones for which the clips were designed, meaning that only the syringes I brought can be used with the clips. This is an okay temporary solution, but a better solution is needed for this to be sustainable. But for now, I’m meeting with the pharmacy on Monday to discuss this more!
Pill Counter: The Pill Counter is basically a diamond weigher that allows for easy and accurate counting of pills. The doctors weren’t sure how useful it’ll be at the clinic, but I will meet with the pharmacy on Monday to see if they would be interested in the device. However, the doctors were really excited about the adherence charts! They think it will simplify adherence calculations tremendously at outreach and want me to make ~10 more charts for them to try out in the next weeks!
Transilluminator: The Pediatric Transilluminator was my project this past semester at Rice. It allows for the illumination of hard-to-detect veins in children to help improve vein access. Although it’s still in its early stages, I think there’s definitely potential and the doctors agree. I will be taking it out to Queen Elizabeth II hospital with Paul next week to see it in action so I can assess its effectiveness/applicability and obtain feedback from the clinicians.
After the meeting, I talked to Dr. Teresa and I got another project! She wants me to adapt the liquid adherence system Christine and Jenna developed a couple of year ago to the newer bottles they use now. I’m excited to get started on this because I thought it was a really neat project!
Dr. Versalovic gave another lecture at noon today on the microbiome in the human body. Doctors/pathologists have been only focused on the pathogens that cause illness in the body in the past, but new research shows that understanding the vast (beneficial) microbiome in the human body may be equally, if not more, important in improving health. I thought the lecture was extremely interesting and am excited to learn more about the new research that are going on.
The clinic essentially shut down after lunch for the opening game of the World Cup (South Africa vs. Mexico). Both doctors and patients wanted to go home to watch the game. I think almost every doctor here brought tickets to at least one game in the next month. I’m a little disappointed I won’t get to go, but I guess I wouldn’t spend $250+ to see a soccer game anyways (besides, visas would be a nightmare!). Dr. Versalovic invited me to go to the Lesotho Sun hotel, where he was staying, to watch the game with him and Erika. The Lesotho Sun is a beautiful hotel! Dr. Mohapi said that it was originally built as a Hilton, but was bought out by the Sun International hotels. We sat down to watch the game at one of the hotel bars. Lorine and Kim also joined us a couple of hours later. The Basotho guests at the bar went absolutely wild when RSA scored their first goal! After the game, Dr. Versalovic treated Erika, Lorine, Kim, David, and me to dinner at the Lesotho Sun restaurant. Like the rest of the hotel, dinner was amazing! Dr. Versalovic was extremely friendly and I learned so much from him just through our conversations!
Saturday: Today, Lorine, Kim, Erika, and I went pony trekking in Malea-lea! We went on a 4-hour ride to Botsoela waterfall. The view was absolutely breathtaking and I love horseback riding! Below are some pictures from our trip, including a humorous sign that predicted the weather at Malea-lea Lodge.
(It’s a little difficult to read from the picture, but the sign says:
Up to the minute weather report prepared as a courtesy by the Malealea Weather Station:
If the rock is wet…it’s raining.
If the rock is hot…it’s sunny.
If the rock is cool…it’s overcast.
If the rock is white…it’s snowing.
If the rock is blue…it’s cold.
If the rock is swaying…it’s windy.
If the rock is gone…the dog has it.)
Sunday: Today, Lorine, Kim, Erika, and I went to the craft center of Lesotho! The weavers there make the traditional Lesotho blankets that everyone said that we should buy before going home. Lorine, Kim, and Erika all got themselves beautiful handcrafted tapestries, but I think I’m going to wait for now. Maybe I’ll ask my parents if they would like one beforehand (I took a bunch of pictures) since they are quite expensive ($90-150).
Dr. Mohapi and the rest of the doctors/residents have been great about recommending fun places to go/cool things to do and have even spent time taking me places themselves! I’m grateful to have gotten to see so much of Lesotho already and am blessed with an amazing group of mentors, but I don’t want to seem like just a tourist! Hopefully, next week as my projects start picking up, I’ll be more a “serious worker.” Anyways, thanks for bearing with me through the long posts! I will try to be more concise/update more often in the future so that my posts will be shorter.