RESCUED!

They've seen us!!! We're RESCUED!

OOH "Out of Here"

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go. I'm standin' here outside Winair. I hate to wake the goats up to say goodbye. But the dawn is breakin', it's early morn. The dog is waitin', he's barkin his horn. Already I'm so elated I could die. Cause I'm leaving on a prop plane, I don't know when I'll be back again...

This is it. Got my passport, and one-way ticket home. It's been a journey and a half, and I'm hopeful I've learned enough to make it to the next Step. But for now, it's travel and some welcome R & R before starting the push for boards and my date with destiny. Another long day, but I know the drill by now after 6 runs. Hopefully all the bags and flights are on time, and together. Can't wait to be home again.

Happy Kingdom Day

In the islands, there is only one thing more predictable than the weather... holidays! Today is 'Koninkrijksdag' or 'Kingdom Day'. it's a national holiday here and in the Netherlands and happens every December 15. It celebrates the signing of the Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands by

Queen Juliana on 15 December 1954. The charter deals with the relation between The
Netherlands and the overseas territories like the Netherlands Antilles (soon no longer to be in existence).

So today, nothing official can get done. I'm quite sure though that the green bottles will flow, and political conversation will spew. Or will the bottle spew, and conversation flow? As this place goes back to the kingdom, while most countries seek independence, the celebration will likely be the last one. In 2010, the last of the "overseas territories" will be gone, and all will either be back in the kingdom (not just a territory), or independent (like St. Maarten, Curacao, etc). This really is very historical but likely will not get the appreciation it deserves.

And I will continue to get ready to depart, also for the last time. Knowing that the next time I come to visit, if and when, I'll be entering a new place with more rules, regulations, organization, services, and taxes. It's bittersweet leaving now, but I'm a bit happy I won't have to live through the challenges that likely will be when the transition actually occurs.

So as we go back to the rule of the kingdom, Happy Kingdom Day!

Never Saw it Coming

"The toughest sacrifices are the ones we don't see coming. When that happens, when the battle chooses us, that's when the sacrifice can turn out to be more than we can bear."

Hard day. And I thought it was really out of my mind.

It never is, is it?

The Mind Protects

The mind has an amazing way of protecting us from the traumas of our lives. We experience great stresses and like the small animal injured in a fight, the mind squelches the event and moves us forward to new challenges and new risks. Such is the experience of the past few days and months.

The memories are becoming buffered by the action of the mind and everyone speaks of the "good times", and great friends, and wonderful experiences. But if you listen closely, you can hear the remnants of some of the trauma hidden by the artificial expressive aphasia imposed by the mind. For speaking the truth in many cases, while factual, only resurfaces the wounds. And while those truth traumas are really there, we have to thank the brain for doing it's handiwork.

Respect and Stuff

Coming to the 1/2 way point of this monster, I realize that I've learned so much since I hit the start all bright eyed and bushy tailed. Not that I'm any less bright and bushy (cuz I'm not), but I've had some sense knocked into me for sure. I'm so thankful for the wonderful mentors and teachers along the way here. They are the reason I came and stayed in spite of the processes that threatened to derail us.

I came on faith and the recommendations of my friends who graduated from here now directors, practicing docs, residents and interns. They said that the campus was filled with role models, respect for the students and a pathway to the goal I sought. So I came, and learned.

I've learned that respect is something that is earned, not demanded. I've learned that quality is created, not accidentally stumbled upon by filling up slides. I've learned that quality doesn't have to be packaged in a pretty building. I've learned that our students are some of he most tenacious, focused learners in spite of great adversity and forces willing to impede progress. I've learned that not all change is good change, and can be dangerous if not recognized as such. I've learned that often little things create the greatest footprint of impact and effect. I've learned that, at times, doing the right thing is just walking away.

In retrospective sum, I see the great things accomplished, but I'm sure that my brain is deliberately hiding from me the traumas we were subjects of. I appreciate the experience so far, my classmates and the opportunity. And I'm ready for the next phase of the learning and hopeful I didn't learn too much, or too little.

 

Cause the next "step" is coming....and it's a doozie!

Privacy

HIPAA Privacy Rule - protects the privacy of individually identifiable health information

I have to admit, I'm a novice when it comes to experiencing health care delivery beyond the borders of the U.S. So this Caribe healthcare experience has been truly "new" in many, many ways. But one of the most amazing to me, it the protection of privacy. To the extent possible, the providers do their best, but in a population of less than 5,000 where everyone knows everyone, is that really possible?

Further exacerbating the situation is the rather free flowing way that care is delivered and how patient privacy is protected, or not. One encounter truly summed that up for me the other day.

I am sitting with the doc in his private office. There are 3 doors entering the room from the hallway, the next door treatment room, and an adjacent patient room.

A patient walks in with another person and sits down near the physicians desk. I thought the other person was family or close friend. Au contraire! They hardly knew each other. It was the "next" patient in line, sharing the space. But it didn't seem to matter to the patient. Just then the door flies open and a nurse from the hospital, and the hospital administrator walk in. They engage the physician in a conversation about a patient and his family (by name) needing assistance. During the conversation, the nurse next door enters another door and announces that Mr. So and so is ready to see the doc in the treatment room. When the midwife walked in to consult the doc about Ms. such and such and her baby, a phone call engaged the doc in a conversation about Mr. Some and such coming back on island after seeing a specialist.

I looked around. There were 7 of us in the room, and the doc on the phone. Everyone heard everything about everybody. The patient, patiently awaited attention to be turned back on her and her headache.

HIPAA Privacy; apparently, just a formality.

Competent Culture

One of the buzz phrases of medical education has been the concept of "cultural competence." Loosely, cultural competence in health care services is the ability of individuals, and the systems they are a part of, to provide health care to patients with diverse values, beliefs and behaviors.

When I taught this class in an earlier life, I used the CLAS standards as the model for the behaviors that organizations and individual practitioners should use as a guide. Although the CLAS standards are primarily directed at health care organizations, individuals can use them as a guide to make their practice of medicine more culturally and linguistically accessible. This is becoming more and more important as populations become more blended with individuals of diverse backgrounds, religions, nationalities, races, sects and...most importantly...health care belief systems.

I cannot imagine a better place to learn the practice of culturally appropriate health care than where I am. I realized in clinic how far I've come to understand the Caribe culture, and language. First, most would say it's really English, but I say ney ney, ya? Iz der speak aw bra! (nothing to do with lingerie). Me bellie ben hurtz whir I coo coo (nothing to do with psych). Da water ist burn offa me git upa bed. After a few hundred patients, I'm actually beginning to understand most of it, but find myself totally baffled at times. I'm sure I have this deer in the headlights look when I nod as if I know all that is being said. I'm sure I laugh at the wrong times occasionally. The Caribe-English can be quick, choppy, rhotic, glottal, accented, sporadic with influences from Jamaica, Barbuda, Africa, Netherlands, the UK, France and Wales. Ah, but iz Stashia mon!

But then the culture falls away to the frank ills of this land. The charts stack up with the same chief complaints I hear in the U.S.: Diabetes, hypertension, obesity, poor nutrition, sexually transmitted diseases, teen pregnancy, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, stroke, COPD, asthma, emphysema, flu, cataracts, glaucoma, melanoma and other cancers. Illness is a non-judgmental taker of life and health, without prejudice. Disease respects no boundaries or artificial segregation. It is truly equal opportunity. The subjective descriptions by the patient just sound a little different.

Cleared, the Sweetest Word

It's been a hectic last few weeks getting ready to complete basic sciences and move onward to the next phase of training. With all the gloom and doom discussions, and continuous drone about school, I'm ready to move onward, and not a moment too soon.  Lots of discussion about exams and such. It's such an inane conversation, truly an arbitrary system. Amazing how dogmatic people can get about this stuff. It's so contrived.

On that note, If large number of students are failing exams, that's not education...it's ego; teacher ego. Either the exam is too hard, or is poorly written. It is about ego creating an us vs. them mentality, adversarial instead of cooperative and mentoring. It is the creation of the antithesis to team work in healthcare. Students are not dumb, but teachers can be so vain and full of their position power that they succeed in seeing students as dumb, and working diligently to prove the point on exams...their only weapon in the great fight. Worse than having this environment is having it be supported by leadership. The greatest disappointment in school is when students recognize problems, and leadership is unable, or unwilling to move beyond "I know better" into "how can we make it better". There are no easy answers, but there are easy efforts. And in many cases, the effort and the process is more important than the reality.

Back on track...out of here. One of the last events of the process is getting away from the island, cleared of all "crimes and misdemeanors", bills, debts, cusses and discusses. It's basically a signature and pretty stamp scavenger hunt concocted by who knows who. But in a little less than two days I had my done and I was "cleared"...Cleared to leave without risk of being detained in some manner. What a sweet, sweet word. 

So I've officially (or mostly) survived this part of my education and learning (very different and sometimes mutually exclusive terms). I've navigated the right to move forward and onward to the next phase and for that I am grateful. As wonderful as parts of this experience has been, I'm very excited about getting off the rock and integrating back into some sense of civilization, sanity and clarity. Patient care soon, soon.