Clinical Assignment

Today our clinical assignments were determined. Beginning July 14th, I will be working on Mondays and Tuesdays at St. Mary's Hospital in Rogers on the Pre and Post-Op floors. I'll be doing things like assessments, bed baths, back-rubs, Foley catheters, IM and sub-q injections, linen changes, obtaining vital signs, ambulating and teaching patients, and supporting patients and their families emotionally. Personally I will be learning, stretching and growing as many of the nursing tasks will take me far outside my comfort zone.

I've been struck more this week than ever before, that the conditions under which I work in Africa are going to be a far cry from the conditions I encounter in Northwest Arkansas. I trust that I will be efficient and conscientious with the supplies and limited facilities in which I find myself providing health care. Even without supplies, I will be able to do much with the knowledge I will gain here.

While procrastinating my pharmacology calculation exercises this evening, I read several pages of the journal I kept while in Africa. Here is an excerpt from July 25th, 2005.

"I feel very far removed from life in the US. The things that bother me there are so far removed from the kinds of problems the people face here. There is so little money--even among the missionaries. But it takes so little to do so much. If I gave up packaged cereal and ate rice or oats every morning, I could feed many children for a month. If I did not buy designer cologne, I could pay for a child's education for two years. If I did not buy makeup, I could purchase seed for maize that would feed hundreds once harvested. I commit to giving up unnecessary items."

Separated from the emotion fueling the idealism of that journal entry, I think about how relative the statement 'giving up unnecessary items' is. The first few months after I returned from Malawi I experienced reverse culture shock and looked about me at my wealthy American friends and marveled at their oblivion to the needs of so many across the ocean. However, as almost two years have passed since my time in Malawi, I find that my worldview is shrinking. It is so easy to focus on the here and now, the comfort, materialism and opportunities available in a developed country.
Over the past week I've been watching, in bits and pieces, the movie Swades, set in India. It reminded me in a poignant way of the passion if feel for the African people. In the movie, Mohan, an India born man, has lived for 12 years in the US and is a successful engineer for NASA. He takes two weeks off work to return to India to locate, and bring back with him, the woman who filled the roll of his mother for several years of his life. His journey puts him in contact with people who remind him of his roots, of the vast need in India. Most of the people he comes in contact with need him in various ways. He extends his vacation to five weeks, but eventually does return to the US to his job with NASA, against the wishes of those he had been living and working with.

He is discontented back in the US, with a strong desire to be improving the circumstances and lives of the people in India. At the end of the film he moves home and is fulfilled in investing his time, energy and training into helping the villages become more developed and have basic needs met. He ignores castes and the traditions that do not benefit the people, and brings the villagers together to make a better way of life. I suppose it is idealistic and romantic--but that is the way my heart beats. I loved the film.

"Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them." Mother Teresa