Grand Round and Friday OCF Musings

Sometimes the grand rounds in hospital are worth more than the lovely prawn salad sandwiches and fresh fruit that come with it.

On Thursday 3 nephrologists were giving their views on the state of chronic kidney disease across 3 continents - the UK, Ghana and India perspective. Thoughts on chronic kidney disease notwithstanding (basically the situation in Ghana and India are miserable, and in UK it's good, though not as good as the other European countries), the thing that really stood out was the paucity of doctors in those two developing countries, and by extrapolation, the rest of the developing/undeveloped world.

For example, Ghana has only 2 kidney specialists for the whole country, and in some places they have no access at all to a paediatrician/obstetrician. They're better off in India, with 200-odd for the whole country, but the professor pointed out that the population of kidney specialists of Indian nationality in USA is twice that number. And this results in people dying without ever getting a diagnosis or proper treatment, or getting diagnosed at the end stages of diseases, or receiving suboptimal treatment, or not getting proper education and support that would help prevent them from getting certain diseases.

The need for healthcare is great in these countries - how can we complain about the lack of job opportunities?

I guess it comes down to ensuring one's survival, or rather, comfort. For we can surely survive in those countries, but we just can't fluorish there. It becomes a question of commitments and aspirations, or convictions and calling.

It's a question that, without my "secure job offer", I wouldn't know how to answer. Truthfully, I would take the easier way out, only letting my convictions draw me out to occasional medical relief trips or voluntary clinics. Or am I made of more mettle than that? As of now, I have 11 years (if all goes well) to answer that question and slowly test the waters. My first toe-in, hopefully, will be my big and final elective in 2009, and hopefully I'd have retained enough knowledge to actually be of some kind of help at wherever place I go.

And I guess it was with this on my mind that I entered OCF, and because of this formed opinion fresh in my mind I was quite frank with my thoughts. First time for everything I suppose, and another step closer to being more open and forthright (in a diplomatic way hopefully). Only that it takes a whole lot of things to come together (mood, thoughts, surrounding, situation, etc.) to come together before I feel eloquent enough to speak, and this happens once in a very blue moon. The rest of the time, I bumble through my half-formed thoughts and half-forgotten words.

OCF session was good though. It goes to show that if the spirit is willing, God will open up many avenues of change and growth.