Weds, Thurs, Fri

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

     Wednesday was a busy day day with more thyroids, more hernias, and an assortment of other operations the details of which I cannot recall. What I do remember is that nurses walked out that evening. The basis for the strike was failure to pay their earned wages, but it turned out that there were other grievances such as lack of basic medicines in many public hospitals, and lack of electricity in many rural hospitals. During the day Alex and I focused on hernias while Jonathan did a couple of thyroids and other operations. Alex and i did some of the hernia repairs together, and she did a couple with Arthur, one of the Liberian surgical residents. Alex functioned as scrub nurse and surgeon, and learned that she could do the operation with minimal instruments. For one of them, she had no scissors and no needle driver; she used the scalpel to cut sutures and used a clamp for a needle driver. Not elegant or what we are used to, but she got the job done!

      Thursday was a full-blown strike day with nurses chanting at the entrances to JFK. We were still able to get cases done including a thyroid, decommissioning of a colostomy, several hernias, a breast lumpectomy(benign), and removal of a large lipoma from the back of one of the Liberian surgical residents ! I enjoy the opportunity to teach surgical technique and strategy during those cases...experience has value still!

       Jonathan had kidded the hotel management that the September trip members were being discriminated against because only in March did the owner (Shinny) put on a farewell dinner for us on the rooftop terrace. So he gave us a dinner last night and it was great fun! Masmina was there as well as her co-worker/friend, and Dr Sherif, a radiologist and ambassador whom i have met previously. The food was great, and the conversation spirited !

       Today(Friday) Jonathan is leaving at noon for Accra (Ghana), and we will go to the airport this afternoon for our flight to Brussels this evening. We did a final couple of hernia repairs this morning, and then said our goodbyes. We stopped in to have a nice chat with Dr. Camanor, the CMO at JFK, talking about our experience this trip and ideas for the future. Then we went back to the hotel for lunch, showers, and packing up.