Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog
Emergency Medicine education blog
Wednesday, December 1st is World AIDS Day — a day to raise awareness for the ongoing AIDs pandemic around the world and to remember the past. I spent 3 months in Zambia in 2002, a time that really opened my eyes up to what AIDS was doing to the world. Much has changed since then, yet the disaster continues and the burden of AIDS has now persisted for 3 decades. This is what I wrote about my experience and views on the AIDS crisis in Zambia back in 2002.
Mr J had traveled across the border to Zambia from Malawi. He had been admitted to hospital overnight. The brief admission note showed that he was in his thirties and had three presenting complaints: (1) “hungry” (2) “shrinking feet” and (3) “does not want to answer anymore questions”. A blood slide showed the presence of [...]
It is easy to forget the growing pains of the student-to-doctor metamorphosis. For me, the once vague notion of becoming a doctor was made real when I traveled to Zambia to work on the wards of St. Francis Hospital (SFH) in Katete…
Nick Bottom: “I’ll speak in a monstrous little voice.” – from Act 1, Scene ii of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare (~1596). One day, as a trainee doctor working in rural Zambia, I walked through the gates of the hospital to be greeted by what seemed to be the “eeyore-ing” of a demonic [...]
