The theater and a really good beer.

Just to let you know the reason I got to take this amazing adventure that I have been posting about for days does actually exist and inevitably had to begin sometime. The first day of any type of work for me is still always like the first day of school. I picked out my outfit and packed my bag. I made sure that I had arrangements for a sufficient breakfast and then I tried to go to bed early (although I have found that last tactic has not been successful since about 1st grade.). There is always something that keeps me up. This time it was a mix of "Holy moly I am in Vietnam!!!!!!" combined with "Wow am I really going to work at a hospital where all I can say is "shut up"?" At least I am going to a surgical department where bad acting has a larger chance of being the standard. I will say the ceiling was soon to fall in which definitely took the whole edge off of the starting at new hospital where I don't speak the language and am double the height of any other human.

Breakfast this morning turned out to be noodle soup and mangos (separate entities not combined) and Dr. Huong and Mr. K picked me up exactly at 730. So much for time in Vietnam being like rubber. Off we went to the hospital which is huge. 2,800 beds, yes that is a comma. There are 3 main hospitals in Vietnam and this is one of the them (the central one). I was received by the chair and then immediately met 5 of the ten urologists and the 3 residents.
Medical education here is quite different. After medical school they choose a general discipline and then their specialty. For example you have to complete the 3year surgical residency then you choose urology and are given the job. Enter on the job training.

They took me to the operating rooms (also called the theaters) where I noticed all of the patients were awake, some with spinal anesthesia some not. There were no ear piercing, bone chilling shrieks like you would hear if we ever attempted this in the states. One older lady without a spinal shook as they did an open surgery. When asked she stated she wasn't in pain. She was scared of surgery. Even the 3 year old little girl with the duplicated system and a non functioning upper pole who leaks (layman's terms: extra part on the top of her kidney that functions just enough to be a pain in the butt) only whimpered until she was allowed to hold her own mask.
On the topic of anesthesia, they do not use narcotics for pain control because they are extremely afraid of addiction. People take toradol or Tylenol.

Getting dressed for the OR they had to find me a closet. There has never been a native woman who has gone into surgery in Hue. there have been two other women urology visitors. I came back to the main room just adjacent to the OR where some were smoking. And they told me I had to change out of my danskos (i.e. Excellent foot protection from blood, guts, & all other bodily emissions) into flip flops like the ones people wear when they still have rollers in their hair and need to go to walmart at midnight (of course I have been to walmart late night. I grew up in Gastonia in the 90s).

After watching as four surgeons took half of this little girl's kidney quite speedily and then watching them resect a prostate it was lunchtime (10 am) with the afternoon starting at 2pm.

Of the things that impressed me the most this first morning in addition to the toughness of even the toddlers here was their lack of waste. Everything is reused. For any given surgery in the states we produce at least 2 hefty sized landscaping trash bags (and I believe 2 to be a conservative estimate). They had trash the size of a small bathroom waste basket.

Back to the 4 hour lunch break/ siesta... Does this happen every day???? I said with guarded excitement and anticipation. Yes. Yes it does. The first day I took lunch to move rooms again. The ants had requested I be given a room change. apparently my habit of repeatedly squashing/ drowning them interfered with their daily ritual. i also needed to sort out my now soaked white speckled garments.

After lunch I hopped on a motorbike and went back to the hospital to meet the rest of the team for the week. More surgery followed and we were done by 345 pm.

Dr. K and Hao (the rest of my team from the states) and I decided to eat out in the backpackers district for dinner and Dr. K introduced me to Huda beer. This is the local beer made with a combination Hue and Danish recipe and it is wonderful. Those of you who know my libation habits well are aware that I rarely like beer. So this was a hallmark event. To the beer lovers out there it either means I have an extremely fine taste that can rarely be satisfied or it is the worst beer ever, completely unpalatable to the true connoisseur. I of course vote for the former.
Pics: or shoes, the or, the view from my new room.