New posts over at the globemed blog

We have a couple new posts up over on the globemed blog, one of which I've written so please go and check it out. I will try to get a new post here within the next few days.

http://tuftsgrow.blogspot.com/

What I’ve been Reading

There are not a whole lot of updates since my last post. Its been a pretty quiet week at the hospital. I've just been sitting in the office every day chugging along, getting work done.

I thought, to at least give some update, I’d talk about the books I’ve been reading since I left the US. I’ve actually just finished the 26th last night. I’ve read a lot of really great books and some that were okay. I will briefly mention a few that stood out and give a list of each of the books at the end.

I’ve been doing all of my reading on my nook eReader. It was a great investment, and has allowed me to vary around so many more books than if I was still using paper books. For only a hundred dollars (probably less as there are newer versions out) I’d definitely recommend it for anyone who reads a lot. The other tool I’ve been using is the Calibre ebook library tool. Its free to download and it makes organizing your books and converting them to different formats extremely easy. I organize and rate my finished books on GoodReads.com which is how I know how many I’ve finished.

The first book I finished since getting here was called Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by British author Susanna Clark. It’s a long book but was a fun historical fantasy epic that’s written as if it were written in the time period it took place in, which was the 18^th century.

I read John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series which is a good intersteller war scifi saga. They are pretty fast reads and I’d recommend them to any scifi fan.

I read Brandon Sanderson’s Allow of Law book. Sanderson has recently probably become my favorite fantasy writer. I’ve not read all of his books yet, but I’ve loved all of them that I have read so far. Allow of Law takes place in the Mistborn universe which is an incredible trilogy I’d highly recommend. His books average at least 700 pages though so prepare to be with them for a while.

I also stared rereading the Wheel of Time books. I first read them years ago. There were 11 book, each 800 pages with the 12th final one on the way until Robert Jordan, the author, died before finishing them. Fortunately, he had left a lot of notes for people to follow and the aforementioned Sanderson is working on finishing them up. He split the 12th book into 3 books. The first two of which are out. The third and final book in the epic series is coming out this winter, so I wanted to reread some of the old ones in preparation for the final one.

I read Good Omens by Neil Gaimon and Terry Pratchett. It was a fun read and offered some nice commentary on good and evil and the human condition.

The best book I’ve read so far has to be Red Shirts by John Scalzi (who I mentioned above). It is his newest scifi book about the idea of the redshirt characters in science fiction (the characters that don’t really have names who just get killed off for dramatic tension) realizing that there is something going on with their mortality rates. It is well written and hilarious. If anyone has watched star trek, you should read the book right away.

I read The Last Wish and Bloods of the Elves which are the first two books and the only ones translated into English so far of the Witcher Series. They were written by a polish author and are really great, and pretty fast fantasy reads. There is now a video game series based on them.

Recently I finished up Pox: An American History which is all about small pox epidemics in the US during the progressive era. It offers a great deal of social commentary, and shows just how much power the government has when it comes to dealing with disease.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that I’ve also read 3 or 4 Vonnegut Books since coming here. I finished Hocus Pocus last night, and with that, I’ve actually read every one of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels. I might blog about them some other time. While they were not all as good as Slaughterhouse-Five, they were fun and fast satires.

Well, those are the highlights. Below is a full list of the books I’ve read so far, as well as the ones that are next on my list. (I’m not going to hyperlink to all of them as that would take too long with the slow internet.) If you’d like any of the books, let me know and I can email them to you in any eBook format.

Books I’ve Read

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susana Clark
Situations Matter by Sam Sommers
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut
The Last Colony by John Scalzi
Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut
The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan
The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan
Infections and Inequalities by Paul Farmer
The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
The Bhagavad Gita
Hero’s Trial (Star Wars) by James Luceno
Jedi Eclipse (Star Wars) by James Luceno
Redshirts by John Scalzi
Balance Point (Star Wars) by Kathy Tyers
Deadeye Dick by Kurt Vonnegut
The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
Blood of the Elves by Andrzej Sapkowski
The Checklist Manifeso by Atul Gawande
Pox: An American History by Michael Willrich
Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut

Book I’m Currently Reading

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Books I’m Reading Next

House on Fire by William Foege about Smallpox eradication
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, a highly rated fantasy book
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, a scifi book
Elantris by Brandon Sanderson
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

A crazy couple weeks

Firstly Happy 4th of July!

I’m sorry that it has taken me so long to submit any updates. It’s been very busy here and I was sick for a little while. A little over the week ago I had some bad stomach and digestive problems. I had diarrhea for a few days straight, and I also vomited a bit. The doctors here eventually hooked me up to an IV so I could take in fluids as I could not keep anything down and things were passing through too quickly. The doctors were great, and the ones from the US that were here took care of me. They checked on me frequently throughout the day, and made sure I had a steady stream of fluids coming in. I ended up losing about 10 pounds in 3 days, which brings my total weight loss since Bangladesh up to 20 pounds. It is not the healthiest, but I’m eating fine now and hopefully it will start building back soon.

After I was sick, because of all the weight loss and the inability to eat, I was weak for a lot of the last week. I could not walk around too much without getting dizzy, and I was having difficulty eating all that much. As a result I was not able to help out a whole lot with the mad rush to get all the construction finished before the VIPs arrived. I was feeling better by the end of the week, just in times for the guests to arrive.

The VIP’s arrived on Friday, in time for the hospital’s third year anniversary celebration. There were a few of the upper level Nyaya staff here from the US. Then there were a couple major donors, and Paul Farmer was here with his team. For those of you who don’t know Paul Farmer founded Partners in Health, one of the largest global health organizations out there. He is also a professor at Harvard and has a posting at the Brigham. I’ve read both books about him in classes I’ve taken, as well as books written by him in classes I’ve taken and for fun.

At the ceremony a number of people got up to spoke about the work the hospital has been doing. A number of politicians also got up to speak, and they spoke for quite some time. That night there was a banquet at the hospital with outside food brought in so things tasted different which was nice.

The next day, first thing in the morning a couple of the hospital staff actually got married and invited all of us to their wedding. We drove for about 45 minutes to get to a Hindu temple where the ceremony took place. I really had no idea what was going on most of the time but it seemed like a nice ceremony. After that, we went with Paul out to a community where we met with some community health workers. It was my first time actually making it to a community as I was sick the past two weekends, so It was nice to get out into there for a change.  That night there was a wedding celebration where there was another big feast, and a lot of dancing. I did not dance at all but I did eat quite a bit. The food was great. I got a stomach ache again, but this time it was from eating too much, rather than eating too little or eating something that was no good.

The next day we took a trip to the district capital at a town called Mungleson. It was about an hour and a half drive but it was not a bad trip in the jeeps we took. When we were there we had a number of discussions about how Nyaya can further connect with the public sector here in Nepal. We also had a meeting with the district health officer at his office. He is in charge of all health initiatives in Achham. He gave us a tour of the district hospital which was unfortunately in a sad state and was pretty run down.

Monday was the group’s last full day at the hospital and we stated on campus and got work done for most of the day. The last of the VIPs left yesterday and it has been business as usual since, albeit a little quiet as few people that have been working here returned to KTM.

To summarize, it was an incredible time having them here. It was nice to have a new group of people to talk to, and getting to work with Dr. Farmer was just incredible. It’s one thing to read a book about someone or to read one of their books. It’s another thing entirely to learn from them and their experience. Everything became a teaching moment, whether it be about how to deal with a patient’s clinical manifestation, to discussing the systemic issues that negatively impact the health of a population. I learned as much or more in the last weekend about global health than I have from entire classes that I’ve taken.

As of right now, I’m feeling healthy, and the work is going well. I’m going to be here in Achham for another 4 weeks, and I’m looking forward to what happens next.

Some clouds just about at the height of our living quarters

The VIPs sitting at the celebration

Another picture of the celebration

A few from the drive to the temple for the wedding

A picture of me at the wedding. I have some Tika on my face

A picture of a lot of bugs that have been all over the place by the thousands the past couple nights