A Day in the Life...

So basically my life according to this blog is one long sunny vacation full of moms and lions. I feel the need to prove to you otherwise.

Welcome to the Office of Emergency Department Medical Records at Princess Marina Hospital!
If you're thinking, "Oh, that's a nice building behind that giant dumpster," perhaps you're right. It is a nice building. Too bad the medical records are in the dumpster. Let's take a look inside! That was easy. You might expect a lock or code or something, right? Wrong again. When chief nurse Mma Malatsi showed me the trailer, we had such a hard time opening the door with its complicated double lever contraption that had to be twisted at precisely the same angle at the same time, that she decided no one would bother trying to get in, and a lock was therefore unnecessary. That was great news for me, since I was going to be opening that contraption at least twice a day. I cannot tell you how many nurses have cracked up at the sight of me in a dress dripping in sweat as I try to pull both levers with all my might. They are probably thinking the same thing I was the first time: Why is she trying to open that dumpster?

I do have to admit, while each box supposedly containing one month of carbon copied ED admission sheets is mixed with food wrappers and bodily fluids, this 1000 degree trailer is still more organized than my room ever was in high school. I can almost always find what I'm looking for, but unfortunately for the carbon, I'm covered in sweat by the time I do.

Ever since my study was approved a couple months ago, I have spent each day carrying one box at a time across the hospital to this ED office, which has been my second home. However, it's not at all my space. In fact, it is the primary office of about 6 ER attendings, 6 residents, and 1000 nurses wanting to check facebook on the one functional computer in that wing of the hospital. Yeah, I have definitely been kicked off the electronic medical records system by a nurse wanting to chat on facebook.
Another great part about the space is that whenever it's cloudy or past 5pm, the room goes completely dark, and the single overhead light has not worked in a year. At first I used a headlamp, but now I straight up bring in my bedside lamp each day.
Here's the best part. Lunch! This is called a "fat cake." It's a ball of sweet dough deep fried in oil. All it's really missing is powdered sugar. There are hundreds of carts that sell these on the street everyday. Lucky for me, there's one right outside the ED.

Okay, so even though the routine is a little ridiculous, I have to say I am incredibly happy with how things have gone so far. I've collected most of the data we'll ultimately need, and we're already synthesizing it into interesting stories about HIV care in Botswana. My mentor Michelle was just visiting for the week, and it was so much fun troubleshooting and brainstorming with her. She got so into it that she actually spent a good amount of her week looking through raw data with me in the tiny office and getting really excited when she saw that doctors were following her pneumonia protocol. Luckily I had brought the lamp AND the headlamp those days.