Nolan - 7/15/08 8:34 AM

7/15/08 8:34 AM

I am unsure how I can transpose so much so fast, but I will do my best to cathartically digress my thoughts and experiences from these last few days here.

This last Friday evening we began packing for our safari adventure. After the challenge of pushing our backpacks beyond their limits, we sat down to watch Prison Break. In the corner of Erica’s eye she saw a rat run across the floor. It took us about an hour to trap it, decided who would kill it, and then clean up. It was rather hilarious to see 4 med students with facial shield and surgical gloves disposing of anything the rat touched – 3rd world rats carry some serious diseases. I have learned however through my time here that I am different in terms of the level of cleanliness I need to be content. Everyone in my apartment I feel is freaking out about the cleanliness. I understand I differ from most people, so I am the one that is off course here probably, but I find a tough time seeing the need to clean something if it will get dirty again…. Anyway, onto the weekend,

We headed North East toward Murchison falls in a small safari mutatu. As I listened to my Ipod and watched the passing landscape I started to have those deeply introspective thoughts that make me evaluate my life. I know I will be unable to do any justice to the sheer magnitude of what transpired in my mind here, but I will try my best. On the road we passed herding villages with lots of cattle, and only a small 5 year old boy and a stick to guide them. We saw massive poverty, Thatched and Mud homes, school children in uniforms running along a busy highway on their way to an education, and much more. Initially in my mind was a sense of pity. They being poor, me wearing an Abercrombie shirt. But as you watched the faces of those on the road you didn’t see despair you saw joy. I saw smiles and waving families. Women in colorful traditional dresses and men hard at work, but always with a smile on their face. I realized that these people and many people worldwide and perfectly content in their life. The only moments on this last weekend when I saw peoples faces changed is when rich tourists flashed their money… and by comparisons highlighted the lack of the locals. I am thankful for how I am traveling here… meager and in no grand entrance. We eat where the locals eat, ride with them, and spend time trying to understand their lives. I have taken zero pictures of the people here, for I do not want to make them apart of my safari.

Being in the position of growing with the people here brought back distant passions to do something meaningful with my life. I have always thought of death, and what I want to do with my life so that when I die I have created a legacy. This is one of the biggest reasons why I went into medicine. I wanted to have some knowledge, some skill that I could serve that would change the lives of those that encountered me. So far in my medical schooling I have become greatly disillusioned for several reasons. The first being the desire for comfort, that while I want to do something noble with my years I don’t want to have to live in poverty to do so. I want to be able to be compensated proficiently for my time, so that my family does not lack. I then think of all the different jobs I could have gone in to…. With less work, less schooling and using defiantly less of my brain then I use for medicine I could be making easily $500,000 a year. This amount may seem staggering, and I guess it is, but it highlights in my mind that I did not choose medicine for money, I chose it to make a change. That brings up disillusionment #2. I chose medicine so that I could usher in a better life for others, and without me it would never have happened. I therefore have been drawn to the difficult and competitive specialties: Neurosurgery, Trauma Surgery, etc. Yet just like medical school applications, there are tens of thousands of students behind me fighting for the spot I have. So even if I devote my life to a field of medicine, become the best doctor out there and save thousands of peoples lives, in the end I have effected nothing. For if I decided to instead become a janitor that neurosurgeon position would have gone to someone else and he would have effected the same thing. I do not want to be just a cog in this wheel of life. Whether it be a top important cog, or a bottom medical student cog, I don’t want to be easily replaceable. It is this desire that directed me into global medicine. There are not many who are passionate enough and willing to give up many of the luxuries of the US including their continental family to work abroad. There is not much competitiveness, there is not a long line to help the poor. There is no sizable paycheck waiting at the end of it. There is no glamour, no monetary reward, no factors that drive mass people to the field. And yet, I find myself continually drawn to forsake my culture of wealth, protection, and prosperity that puts us in a coma to the hurts of the world, so that I can effect a change somewhere. I want to go somewhere and establish something that will heal and help and without my personal sacrifice, without me going and organizing and working it would never have come to fruition. I guess I still search for that meaning in my life, that justifiable reasons as to why on an individual basis we were put here on this earth. I refuse to believe mine was to be a cog. As I see these people in Uganda who don’t have care and desperately need a doctor, it gives a reason for why I am learning physiological splitting of S2, Renal Tubule Acidosis, and Thiamin Deficiency. Back at UCSF all of this seemed just as useless trivia because, I could not foresee myself as going the path of a medical cog. But here, it seems like the information I learn will save a mans life. And If I personally don’t learn it, then he will die. No one will be competing for my position. No resume padding, no ulterior motives… Just life and Death. I see myself in a familiar woods with diverging roads… One road is the path of personal meaning and lifelong work I would be proud of…. And on the other is trying to acquire the easiest and richest life I can in the states. The question I guess is: Do I posses the strength of character to effect change in this world?

I never thought that I would be having these great apprehensions about medicine. But then again, I should be thankful for these apprehensions are what remind me of what is personally paramount. These apprehensions show me I have not yet been completely lulled into the American indifference. These apprehensions are what prick and prod, and even comfort my heart into not settling for comfort but striving for change.

This past weekend I also had an amazing late night conversation with Willie, Erica, and Justin concerning racial and cultural differences. However I will save the lessons from that for a later time. There is still so much to convey, and I must be going to work here very soon.

Saturday night we stayed in Masindi which had its own Rose and Thorn. Rose being the game of soccer played with the local children for hours. They only had a deflated 4 square ball to play with so I bought them a soccer ball, and my team along with 100 village boys all played into the night. It was an amazing time, and probably the first time many of them had ever played soccer with a white man. They were thrilled I was there, but I was thankful to be allowed apart of there game and life. Thorn being that it was the worst night sleep ever. There was a part next door with loud music, and we got up at 3:30 AM to begin our tracking.

Once we crossed the Nile we began finding elephants, giraffes, hippos, buffalos, antelope and more. It was an amazing experience to be able to see all of these beautiful creatures in their natural habitat. Absolutely stunning! We then hiked murchinson falls and saw the beauty of the nile.

Yesterday however was my favorite day of the entire trip. We got up early in the morning and left with our Chimpanzee tracker. Her name was Sauda and works with the Jane Goodall Primate Preservation Group. Seeing as how there is no fence, no cage, it is often difficult to find the chimpanzees in the jungle for they roam and go wherever they want. Sometimes weeks without people being able to see them. We tracked Chimp Nests, Dung, and broken fruit. We saw chewed leaves they self medicate with, and listened for Chimp calls. We tracked this all and got closer and closer…We saw them slowly at first and got rather excited. 1, then 2, then 3 etc… There was a moment when they surrounded us and started howling…. Our guide told us what to do if they attack: Drop to the ground lay flat and guard your hands and arms as they will break them. After we showed that we were no threat (This was a CRAZY experience…. So much adrenaline) they began to mellow out and resume their life of grooming and eating. What followed was sublime. We spent several hours with this wild chimpanzee crew of around 30+ Primates just watching this breathtaking and once in a lifetime experience. Even our guide was amazed at how many were there, and how open they were to have us there. Truly Truly outstanding. My pictures do not do justice to the magnitude of this time.