19 September 2016

Wow! It’s been a great day for me and the students! I feel like I’m coming home to many old friends- actually I am! My usual driver from Masindi, Sam, picked us up at the Entebbe Airport Guest House this morning and took us to run the usual errands of getting American dollars changed into Ugandan shillings at the Forex (foreign exchange office) or getting money from the ATM and purchasing SIM cards for our phones along with airtime minutes and a data plan.  It is amazing how much this small thing of being able to communicate with friends and family back home really helps any shock from the realization that we are 7000 miles from home right now.  Then we proceeded to Kampala to meet up with Winnie, the Ugandan Pharmacist who is now working with me on my Uganda capacity building project to Imorove Safe Medication Use.  She is teaching the Pharmaceutical Care Skills Lab (PCSL) for Makerere University and precepting the students for hospital rounds.  She has also been running a pilot study of the implementation of pharmaceutical care in the Neurology and Neurosurgery wards at Mulago National Referral Hospital. She started this at the midpoint of my last trip here in April so at this point she has been regularly rounding with the physician team helping to identify and solve drug therapy problems for 5 months! She works with team Monday thru Saturday and has found that team is relying upon her to do this. She is told how much she is missed when at times she is unable to attend rounds.  Then finally we were on the road to Masindi through the beautiful countryside.  The students saw monkeys scampering alongside the road as well as Ankole Cattle and birds and goats, tied up by the road. Again, the students and I were warmly welcomed to Masindi. I love being back here!  We had a delicious dinner in one of the cabanas- I had fish tikka masala with jeera rice! Yum! Yum!  Tomorrow we will head to Masindi Kitara Medical Center (MKMC) where the students will begin to learn about the healthcare challenges faced by Ugandans as well as the many diseases they will hardly, if ever see in the USA such as Malaria and Typhoid.