Friday, 22 June 2018

I left Mulago Guest House in Kampala around 9:20am this morning with my friend and Masindi driver, Sam, to head to Masindi for the weekend. We stopped by a restaurant on the way to see his daughter who is now out of college and working there. I can’t believe how she has grown up. I remember when Sam had brought me to a school to meet both of his daughters several years ago and they were so much younger. We arrived Masindi safely around 12:45pm. I had called ahead to my friend, Janine, who is Health Education Missionary for the Church of Uganda, and she had lunch waiting for us at the New Court View Hotel. I love staying at this hotel. The food is delicious and the staff is wonderful!

Patrick, KarenBeth, Baluku

We headed over to Masindi Kitara Medical Center (MKMC) after lunch to meet with Patrick and Baluku, the administrative staff, and to meet the new doctor, Dr. Denis Kayumba. It was so nice to catch up with Baluku and Patrick and see how well the Clinic is doing and growing. There are some new staff but also lots of people I know from the years of working with them. Dr. Kayumba and I had a great talk and brainstormed about a variety of different activities he could engage all of the health care professions students who come to rotate at MKMC.

Besides the students I brought here through Wilkes University, the numbers coming from other Universities has been growing, but most are from MUSC in South Carolina. I agree it is a great learning experience for nursing, physician assistant, medical, pharmacy, physical therapy, public health etc students. Both the medical and non-medical staff are eagerly involved with teaching the students. Tonight at dinner, I got to meet the 3 physician assistant students who have just finished there 4 weeks with MKMC. I’m sure they will return to the states changed for the better with a greater appreciation for the healthcare challenges of Uganda and with a new appreciation for the USA healthcare system.

If you’ve been following me for awhile, you might wonder why is there a new doctor and what happened to Dr. Godson. Well, I need to tell you all about that in detail at a later time but the short answer is that Dr. Godson is now in Binghamton, NY, where I live, getting ready to start an Internal Medicine Residency Program with UHS Hospital. In fact, he told me the other day that his new apartment is only a few minutes away from my home.

Well, it’s getting late and I must sleep now. I’m looking forward to a relaxing day tomorrow I’m this beautiful place. I will share with you the pictures I took of the gardens this afternoon tomorrow. By the way, there was a fierce but short rainstorm this afternoon. Check out the rain in this video. I