Welcome

Although a new chapter of life is beginning, I would love to maintain the friendships and relationships that God has blessed me with over the past 23 years of my life. This blog will not be a complete story of everything that is going on in my life (and I'm sure you're all very thankful for that) but I want to provide a way in which to stay in contact and to provide at least a glimpse of the places that I'll go, the people that I'll meet and the lessons and knowledge that will come about through various experiences.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Ethiopia (part 1)

It is amazing to think that my time in Ethiopia has already come and gone. I remember thinking about which school had the best global health opportunities when I was applying for PT School and thinking how great it would be to go to Ethiopia when I heard about the trip that Regis goes on every year. Fast forward almost 3 years and this trip that I was so excited about is in the past yet the lessons that I'm learning are still being ingrained in my brain and Ethiopia is a topic in almost every conversation that I have. I promised some people that I would attempt to blog about my experiences and had every intention on doing this while I was abroad but for a variety of excuses it didn't happen. Then I had every intention of doing it immediately once I got home but with needing to travel from Denver to Poulsbo, WA the day after we got home there were more pressing things to do. This is blog 1 of an undecided amount of blogs on my trip. I don't currently have pictures to post as I took more than 1500 photos and need to edit them before I'll allow people to see them but I'll be posting them in the next few weeks on my facebook account.

Before I even begin to talk about my trip it is necessary to say a big THANK YOU to each and every one of you for your prayer and financial support for this trip. I know a lot of people who do not like to ask for money when they go on trips like this but that is one of my favorite parts of the preparation for the trip. This is not because I like to ask for money but I truly believe that the support both financially and prayerfully remind me that this kind of trip is so much more than just about me. When I get to go on trips such as this I feel like I am representing the people who have sent me and supported me. This trip was not just a Regis Physical Therapy trip but it was so much more than that and from the bottom of my heart-- THANK YOU

CLINICAL EXPERIENCE:
As most of you know, the majority of our trip is spent doing clinical work in a variety of hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I was at Black Lion Hospital (BLH), a government run hospital with one of my classmates. Each of us worked side by side with an Ethiopian PT and at BLH saw patients together. This was important for a couple reasons. First- most people at BLH don't speak English so having our clinician there at all times provided a means for translation. Although we always had a translator available, it was amazing how difficult it was to treat patients with the limited information that was actually translated. We often discuss in courses how almost 90% of the information that we need as PTs to treat a patient is established during the subjective interview process. Well, take a 10 minute conversation that was had in all Amharic and then have 1 sentence translated into English and I often felt like I only had about 5% of the picture that I needed to see. Although this was very difficult, I believe that it help my critical thinking and decision making skills so that's definitely a positive. Second- the goal of this trip is education and working in collaboration with an Ethiopian trained PT allowed for education to take place in both directions. The PT that I worked with (Negatu) was a very skilled therapist and I learned a great deal from working with him and having discussions with him. He also asked a bunch of questions about patient care that allowed me to give my opinion on the matter as well as allowed me to demonstrate different techniques that I would use in management that he hadn't seen before. I truly believe that this opportunity is mutually beneficial which is awesome. Working alongside a therapist from Ethiopia also allows this trip to be sustainable. So often groups from the Western Countries go abroad and set up clinics and see a bunch of people and then they leave. Although this is beneficial, the model that Regis uses is not just to see a bunch of people while we are in Ethiopia but to help advance the profession of physical therapy and advance the knowledge and skill set of the therapists in Ethiopia so that in the 10 months that we aren't there people are still receiving the best care possible.

MCRC (Mother Child Rehabilitation Center)
One of my favorite parts of this trip was the time that we got to spend at MCRC. MCRC was establlished initially to care for women and children and to try and break the cycle of poverty and some of the non-financial effects that poverty has on people. They offer dance classes, music lessons, job training, etc, etc, etc. to teach people that they have value whether they have money or not. The therapist that my colleague, Wes worked with at BLH also worked at MCRC so for the first week the three of us were at MCRC every afternoon treating and caring for anyone that needed treatment associated with MCRC. The reason that I say this was one of my favorite parts of the experience is because it has the most long term potential for me. As some of you know, I have dreams and aspirations of owning a PT clinic and having that PT clinic associated with another clinic somewhere abroad. Throughout my time at MCRC I got to talk to the director and discuss the potential of them starting a clinic and also discuss how I can get more involved in that in the future. I'm not sure 100% where that will go but it's excited nonetheless.

This is a good place to stop blogging for now so that I don't just go on and on for page after page. I will continue where I left off at another time. Again thank you all for your support!
Kevin