Believe it or not I AM actually here for work
working at the cancer center and the 6th International Cancer Congress
Even though I spend most of the day working at the cancer center, I haven’t had much to report on since I mostly am just working on my computer all day. Technically I am here working on a research project looking through their electronic medical records to get an understanding of the patient demographics and how people interact with their health here. Unfortunately every doctor uses the EMR system differently so I’ve had to painstakingly comb through every entry trying to hunt down the different pieces of information. Since electronic health records are not widely used here, there also just isn’t a lot of medical history to report on. To make things worse there aren’t really a lot of patients because even though it is a cancer center there’s no oncologist working here right now? I actually had the opportunity to attend a dinner with local doctors where they provided feedback on the cancer center and that helped clear up some other reasons why they haven’t been sending their patients to the cancer center. While it was interesting for me to hear about, I won’t bore you with the details.
I did also start to talk with more people at work aside from Gamala. My first notable interaction was the security guard and one of the doctors stopping me on my way out of work to ask for a picture. Why they waited until the end of the day when I was all sweaty and gross? Idk. But at least I’ll never see the picture. Since then I have actually been asked to take pictures with other doctors at the cancer center which is so entertaining for me. Aside from the photos, I made friends with the general surgeon, Dr. Rajeev. Originally he came in to ask me about getting a US visa and despite my best efforts to explain that the US government will not believe we are family, he was really convinced that I could swindle it. Of course if I was able to sponsor someone to get a visa I would have already been doing it. Also if it was that easy I’m pretty sure America would be much much more crowded. I was worried he wouldn’t come talk to me after I wasn’t very helpful in that regard, but we actually did spend a long time chatting the next day when Gamala was gone. I think they felt more comfortable chatting with me when she wasn’t overhearing in the office next door since she’s the one running things and likely reporting directly to Dr. Shah. Not that they all don’t chat on a normal day since they essentially have nothing to do but wait for patients. Anyway, when he came in to talk that next time we spent probably two or three hours discussing his experience at the foundation and his thoughts on everything. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that he pretty much shared every single frustration that I have with my work. I figured since this cancer center the foundation’s big philanthropy that maybe things would be different, but alas. What I gathered from Dr. Rajeev is that even though it’s a cancer trust, they ask higher prices from the patients than even the private hospitals. ALSO they do not pay the doctors very well, surprise surprise!! Oncologists here are not usually affiliated with just one place, but are consultants at multiple places, so he has to make most of his money elsewhere. What sucks is that my boss also makes him stay from 9-5 every day, so he has to perform all of his surgeries outside of that time. But like I said, there haven’t even been any patients since I arrived so he has to just sit around all day doing nothing instead of helping patients. I really can’t understand why this would be preferable especially considering my boss LOVES to lecture us about “doing the right thing”. I also can’t understand why they would start a project for a 200 bed hospital when they can’t even fill the 25 bed one. When Dr. Rajeev first started he would bring his own patients here so that they would have something to do, but they got mad at him for doing that so he said he has stopped trying and just sits around and says nothing to keep them happy. It makes me actually so mad that not one single aspect of this organization actually follows through on the mission and that they refuse to take a single piece of feedback from anyone, especially because everyone else who works here really wants to make a difference. The only good thing about that is that I have genuinely met some of the best people, both in the US and in Nepal. I swear one day I am going to start my own organization and hire everyone from the foundation to work for me since I know how many good ideas everyone has and how hard working everyone is. As we all know I could write a whole thesis on how poorly managed things are so I will not get into the rest, but good to know I could have a backup career as an investigative journalist.
In other news, this week was Gamala’s birthday which she did NOT tell me and I only found out from her daughter later in the day. I felt so bad because I totally would have brought something for her, but at the end of the day everyone at the hospital went upstairs and they brought a cake and samosas to celebrate.
When I was up there I met one of the medical officers who hadn’t been on shift that first day when I was introduced to everyone. He speaks really good English so the day Gamala was gone we also talked for a while and he was telling me about what his plans are for his medical future etc. To work as a medical officer they only need their MBBS which is the undergraduate medical degree of 6 years, so I assume we are actually close in age. Since all my friends here are either mothers or young children, it was refreshing to talk with someone in the same generation as me for once. We also just talked politics and perspectives and as always it was so interesting to hear what his thoughts were on US vs. Nepal, etc. Of course this also included a fantastic discussion on guns in America!!!
Work definitely picked up the last few days when my boss arrived and we were getting ready for this weekend’s conference. I will never complain about putting on conferences in the US again after this week. Why my boss thought I could be in charge of things here is really beyond me as there was really no way for me to organize equipment from the cancer center I don’t work at, talk to the venue staff, print materials, get TO the venue, ask for help from most of the cancer center staff, etc. Despite needing to prepare for the conference, on Friday I went with my boss, Justin (the newly hired Chief Development Officer for the foundation), Dr. Aboulafia (Seattle cancer doctor), Dr. YP Singh (Kathmandu oncologist), and a health journalist? to see the new hospital site. We crammed in this Jeep which was SWELTERING because the windows had to be up to keep the dust from the road out, and drove essentially outside of town to what I can only describe as the middle of nowhere, Nepal where this piece of land has been purchased. Apparently it’s only a few miles from the border of India, and as my boss says, patients can just walk across! Anyway, we get to this piece of land and as you can imagine from what I’ve described, there’s not a lot to see. Of course my boss has commissioned this filmmaker to create a documentary, so they were filming a bunch of stuff and interviews with my boss while the rest of us just stood around chatting in the hot ass sun. The documentary crew was around ALL weekend filming stuff and I honestly am not sure what the direction of any of it was. It sort of made everything feel so fake because when we got back we had an all staff meeting at the hospital which they ALSO filmed. The whole meeting my boss was essentially trying to give a motivational speech, but I found it to be pretty demeaning. For him to come from this place and yet speak to everyone as if they are so far beneath, comparing EVERYTHING to America, and really having zero clue who actually works for him here was pretty difficult to watch so I can’t imagine I will be viewing this documentary when it comes out. Thinking about it more, I actually really can’t wait to see how it turns out so I definitely will watch it. Perhaps my coworkers (mostly former) and I can have a movie night to watch it when its done.
Since I had not slept well and Thursday and Friday were extra long, tiring days of work, I was so looking forward to going to bed early on Friday to prepare for my early call time of 6:30am on Saturday for the meeting. Of COURSE, despite not having any issues thus far, I was completely unwell all night and I think I got maybe 3 hours of sleep total before I had to pull myself together and get to the venue. I blame my boss (as with everything) because I’m pretty sure whatever it was that I ate or drank that was not good was at lunch with him. All this to say I was a shell of a human at ICC. I’d love to say that the meeting went smoothly, but of course the poor organization in advance led to me running around the entire time. I guess the one success would be me not shitting myself or throwing up throughout the whole meeting! Though that might have excused me from any future conference staffing.
I did make it through the cultural program in the evening, but by that time I was exhausted and on the verge of a complete breakdown. The program itself was lovely and they had girls from Mona Lisa’s dance studio perform a few dances! As you can see I tried to take a photo but this dude literally stood in the way of our view the entire time. The only funny part is that I’m pretty sure he burnt his pants on the incense that was lit there lol. There was also dinner which I avoided since I was really not willing to risk another night awake. I am forever grateful that Gamala messaged me early this morning to tell me to take the day off because there’s just no way I could survive until next Saturday without recovering from the emotional and physical demise of my boss’s visit. I didn’t even get any peace this morning because prior to leaving, he came to visit his brother and literally woke me up to come for breakfast. My only solace was that I could confirm his exit from Janakpur today because I honestly think I would need to leave the country if he was staying longer.
To make up for the depressing and boring post about where I was this week, please see the next post for some photo highlights of the week.