I heart MedEd

(by Jenn)

Jenn teaching on rounds

Medical Education. Not something I thought I'd really get in to, but I love it!  When we arrived to Kibuye 2019 for a two month vision trip, my role was mostly observational, helping out and seeing patients, but mainly seeing how things work working in an underdeveloped, underserved hospital in Burundi.   When we returned in January 2020, I was mostly in a clinical role - seeing patients on wards, answering questions from generalist doctors who were seeing a complicated case in the outpatient clinic, and teaching some didactic sessions for the medical interns.  Slowly but surely, however, I started taking on more and more of the "medical education" (MedEd for short) component of the work that is done here.  

Six of our most recent graduates from the "Stage Professionnel" program - the one-year rotating internship for doctors who have just completed medical school. 

For the documentation of grades for medical students who are doing their clinical rotations during the latter part of their medical education, they have abook called a "carnet" in which the professors write down a grade for the rotation they have just finished. The profs are in charge of writing the grades, but it's my job to collect the grades, enter them into our spreadsheet, and return the carnets back to the students.  And guess what. I've loved this. "That's weird." you may say.  Well, through this process, I've been able to get to know the names of the students and get to interact with them even when they are not on the peds service.  Sure, it takes time and effort, but I'm glad I've had this responsibility for a bit.  

Students discussing a question I just asked during Peds Journal Club

Sometimes they are intense! Sometimes we just discuss what was done well or what was done poorly in a study. 

Another fun thing that is new is that we are now having a Peds Journal Club two times a month.  I pick articles and alternate between French and English. French so they have a better chance of fully understanding the article which increases the chance they will discuss the article and English so that they are encouraged to at least attempt to read medical literature written in English. Why is this necessary? Every medical student has to write a thesis paper for which an extensive literature review is necessary. Why English you ask? The majority of medical literature is in the aformention language which for all of them is a second laguage.  Wait.  Did I mention this was voluntary for the students!?! They still come!  ◡̈ 

A lecture being given as part of our curriculum for the Stage Professionnel program

Other new(-to-me) responsiblities are organizing lecture schedules for our medical intern program (Stage Professionnel program), giving some of those lectures, teaching medical students after rounds, giving weekly pediatric lectures to the medical interns who are rotating on peds, etc. 

Dr. Christmas teaching about pneumonia to those who are currently on the pediatric service (medical stuednts, nursing stuednts, and residents). 

Dr. Christmas was a student at Hope Africa University, worked at Kibuye Hope Hospital for some years, and is currently in a pedatric residency program in Egypt. He is spending this month with us here at Kibuye.  It's so encouraging to see God's work in the lives of people here! Expecially when it's a stuednt of this system who is now here teaching! ◡̈ 

Michael teaching in the OR.

This image was posed to social media by one of the HAU medical students. 

So all that to say, we love our jobs/roles here and we are so grateful that God chose to put us here on this team!