Monday September 11

Yesterday we had the day off, and I took a day off from blogging. We had a leisurely morning and then went to the beach at RLJ Kendeja for the afternoon.

     Today we started our second week, and I expect it will be just as good and as busy as our first week. The morning started off with Grand Rounds presented by Dr.Gbozee and Dr. Philip Ireland reporting on their experience in the US. They were both financed by HEARTT for a month of observing in the US; Philip spent a month at Yale, and Lawuobah spent the month traveling between Waterbury,CT, Little Rock,AR, and Evansville,IN.The presentations were awesome, and marvelous, and fascinating !! Clearly they took advantage of the opportunity to see a different healthcare system and to start considering the sort of systematic improvements which could be transferred to Liberia.
After rounds I had a good talk with Dr. Marshall about the state of the postgraduate surgical training program, and especially it relates to surgery at JFK.
      For surgery today we did a ventral hernia, a colonoscopy, a boy with probably a dermoid cyst of his neck which I had thought pre-op to be a thyroglossal duct cyst, a young man who was stabbed in the abdomen the previous night, and a 3day old with an imperforate anus. We also saw a number of consultations, some of which were surgical problems which we could help, and others which we referred to medicine.  A 34 year old man came to see us this afternoon with significant ascites(fluid in the abdominal cavity); this is usually the result of severe liver disease, but he didn't appear to have that. Fortunately I was able to find Dr. Ireland downstairs and arrange for the patient to be seen by the medical team to get worked up.
       In the evening we went to the apartment of Teresa and Alex Cummings for a delightful dinner. Teresa is Chair of the Board of HEARTT, and is a wonderfully kind and generous woman. Alex is fascinating: he was born and educated in Liberia, and then pursued a career in business, ending up as Chief Administrative Officer and Executive VP of Coca-Cola. A year or two ago he retired from Coke and they moved back to Liberia where he is running for President currently ( President Sirleaf is not eligible to run again as she has served 2 terms). There are about 20 candidates for the office; if none get over 50%of the vote in October, there will be a run-off between to top two. The polls put him in the top 3 or 4, and he was widely considered to have won the first debate between the candidates. He is definitely not in the usual mold of a politician, but thankfully neither is he like the current US businessman President!! The Cummings live in the penthouse of an apartment building which they started building in 2011; they were able to move in just recently. It is spectacularly beautiful inside and out! There is a rooftop terrace with amazing views of the city. Their interior designer was also at the dinner along with several other guests, and it was a most enjoyable evening.