12 January 2020

My primary focus for today was to stay at the Mulago Guest House and WRITE. My collaborators and I are working on a manuscript regarding our projects Building Capacity for Pharmaceutical Care Education, Practice and Research in Uganda that is due in a couple of days. I just needed to do some last minute editing like make sure the references are formatted correctly and tidying up the tables and figures, but it took me all day long. There are 9 of us writing this paper and we’ve been working on it for months. It is gratifying to have it done!

On left:Dr Godson and son, Ethan, KarenBeth; On right Winnie, Dana, Racheal

Winnie in the Simulation Center at Binghamton University

The USP 797 Certified Sterile Compounding Room

Our unique DNA Sculpture in the Atrium of the Pharmacy School

Binghamton University Mock Community Pharmacy

Since I don’t have anything else new to report, I wanted to take this time to tell you about Winnie’s trip to the USA back in September. Dr. Dana Manning and Wilkes University School of Pharmacy sponsored her short, 2-week trip, to learn more about Pharmaceutical Care in the USA but I was grateful to have her spend time with me in Binghamton over a long weekend. On Friday she participated in a lecture about the different roles of pharmacists in a colleague’s first-year pharmacy school class (P1). Last year Winnie participated in that class by video conference on a day when Dr. Riley and Dr. Spencer had asked several pharmacists from all over the world to speak to the P1 class so it was great fortune that Winnie just happened to be in the states and could participate in person. On Monday, Winnie met with my Complementary and Alternative Medicine class and taught them about how herbal medicines (called traditional medicine) play a major role in the healthcare of many people in Uganda, even though they also use western medicine.

Here are some photos from her trip. Dr. Godson and his  wife, Racheal, are Ugandan and he is here doing an Internal Medicine residency with UHS healthcare system in Binghamton. I had first met Godson when he was the physician at Masindi Kitara Medical Center in Masindi, Uganda. I always enjoyed working with him and when he expressed interest in coming to the USA to pursue medical residency training, I gave him all the support I could. It is a miracle that he was placed with my local hospital and so when Winnie was here, we all got together for dinner.

KarenBeth’s husband, Jeff and Winnie

I also took Winnie on one of my favorite site-seeing trips—to the New York States wineries in the Finger Lakes. We all had great fun and Winnie got to experience the unique practice of bridal showers via tour bus through the wineries. These women were really happy to pose for a photo. I think they were as excited to interact with a Ugandan as Winnie was to see what kind of crazy fun American Bridal Showers can be.