Today was my first day at the Women’s Health Clinic in the Princess Marina Hospital. The Women’s Clinic is at the farthest corner away from the entrance to the hospital, in a section titled “IDCC” (Infectious Diseases and Contagious.. something). Lila gave me a quick tour and introduced me to the people in the office: Mma Monare (mah-mon-NAR-ree) the program director (?), Dr. Hove (HO-vay), Tefo a Rice grad student, Ona a nurse, and a few others. I met Doreen, our mentor, for a few minutes during lunch when she arrived for the weekly Quality Assurance (QA) meeting, in which the staff reviewed the images of cervixes to come to a consensus on any questionable pre-cancerous lesions. I’m getting the hang of what to look for in the acetic acid stain images! Doreen is the head OB/GYN in Botswana, and is the country director for the Botswana-UPenn program at Princess Marina. Needless to say, she was extremely busy, but hopefully I’ll get a chance to discuss my project with her next week!
After the QA meeting, Lila and I met Alexandra for lunch at a nearby homemade food place that served lunch foods. The woman there tried to teach us bits of Setswana, but I forgot them all three minutes after I tried to pronounce them. My gigantic plate of foods I still can’t name cost around P35, and a canned juice cost P9. Going off on a tangent: all of the juices here are quite sweet! I stopped by the grocery store on the way home and purchased a bottle of mango juice and one of peach/apricot juice (P17.9 total), and was so dehydrated by the time that we got home that I drank gulps of the mango juice straight from the bottle. It was extremely sugary, and the question of whether diabetes is a major problem here in Botswana, as is in Belize, crossed my mind. After lunch, we went back to finalize the task that we were assigned for the day: an updated version of the SOP for filling out a new government-issued form for patients coming into the IDCC. We also helped file stacks of patient folders based on numbers that they are assigned.
From what I have observed, Gaborone really doesn’t seem to be the typical “developing country” scene that our global health technologies are designed for. There isn’t a lack of resources in the Princess Marina hospital, and there are BMW’s and Audi’s on the streets. It will definitely take a bit of an effort to get doctors to take a look at the technology, since they don’t immediately or obviously fill a immediate, pressing need. Hm.. This is where my marketing skills come in! If companies can convince people to pay premiums for things like the iPhone (which is great! But really not much more amazing than an HTC) and crippling “name brand” 4 inch heels, then I can convince doctors to at least take a look at medical devices that will help improve healthcare quality. Let’s see…
1) The Invertabottle: targeting home-based care patients that require a relatively untrained caregiver to give doses of liquid medications. I think I’ll need to find one of the doctors that do outreach trips to rural villages..
2) The SAPHE pad: targeting areas that lack easily available doctors… Hm, this should be able to be used in the hospital, even, but I think Lila said that Doreen wanted the pads to be sterile 🙁 That’s something I can’t fix at this stage of the product development cycle, but hopefully I can gather a bit of feedback.
3) The Dremelfuge: Anywhere with low resources or unreliable energy supply.
4) DoseRight clipis: I need to find an internist.
I think my next step will need to be to network and get to know as many doctors as possible, and then ask for their feedback. The residents here at Pilane Court that I have met so far are all dermatologists, but I think a few others are coming in the next week or two. Wish me luck!