Here is the last installment from our Fall 2015 Global Health Elective… Notes from our residents’ travel journal:
“We returned to Amritsar for our final week in India. The night we returned, the CEO of Amandeep hospital invited us over for dinner in which we were the guests of honor. It was surreal to see the level of comradery as almost all of the surgeons and anesthesiologists attended. There is a level of collegiality there that one rarely sees in the states.
On our first day back at SGRD, the anesthesia department borrowed an ultrasound from the radiology department, and we supervised femoral and sciatic blocks for several orthopedic surgeries. We also taught a postoperative saphenous block - the faculty were immensely impressed with the results! There is definitely a lot of interest in learning ultrasound guided blocks (although availability is still limited).
We learned a fair amount about the differences in anesthetic practice between our two hospitals. There is a fairly minimal use of narcotics due to strong restrictions on supply secondary to the strong opioid abuse presence in the area. There is also a cultural component in which patients expect to have pain after surgery or in the setting of obstetrics and delivery. For example, epidurals are almost never used for women in labor. There are no IV PCAs. There is also less access to advanced monitoring and we saw very few arterial lines or central lines placed.
Each day, we gave afternoon lectures to the residents and junior faculty – Jingyi presented on perioperative ECG findings of hypertrophy and conduction blocks, and Shiyin presented on pulmonary hypertension in pregnancy. We got great feedback from the residents that attended these talks. At night, we went to the Wagah border between India and Pakistan to see the flag lowering ceremony.
Our week concluded with a whirlwind trip to Delhi and Agra. In Agra, we explored more of India’s luminous culture and history through seeing the Agra Fort and Taj Mahal. In Delhi, we saw India’s juxtaposition of the new and old when we visited the ancient Humayun’s Tomb and the modern Lotus Temple.
With another Global Health Elective program in India complete, all the faculty, fellows, and residents involved have taken away a set of experiences that will be remembered for a long time and that they look forward to sharing with our colleagues back in New York City.
EB