Blog like an Egyptian

Puns aside, Egyptians do things on there own schedule and I guess I’ve picked up the habit. Actually it has been a whirlwind few days and I actually just now have time to make my last post. I’m sitting in the Cairo airport with my flight to Paris leaving at 1:35 am on Sunday. I’ll make it back to Oklahoma City via Houston around 7:30 tonight. Needless to say, Monday will be a challenge.

We had a really good day on Friday considering the relative urgency to get things wrapped in time for the first round of departing guests to make their flights. We did another 9 cases utilizing our two bed OR as well as rotating cases in another room. Our plastic surgery friends had finished their cases earlier than we did and they actually helped us out by closing skin incisions. We had a great week given the number of cases we were able to get done and the number of kids we were able to help out.

I expected that the operative experience would be different than anything I had done before, and indeed it was. Typical challenges to any given case would be flies in the OR, dim lights, rolling OR tables, multiple Arabic conversations going while you operated (even if they weren’t talking about you, you’d never know), so-so surgical instruments, etc. Despite all this I feel like I was able to hold my own and realized how lucky I am to work in conditions that are optimized for good outcomes.

The entire staff of the hospital was great to us all week. I could sense they were very proud of their hospital and they did everything they could to make us feel like we were part of their team. The hospitality was not limited to the hospital but extended into pretty much everything we did all week. One of the former house officers was visiting the hospital on Friday prior to our departure and was a huge help in arranging for my trip back to Cairo. He took Joseph, an anesthesia resident from New York, and me to the train station and even tried to pay for our train tickets himself. Just before boarding he brought us to a neighboring market so we could be some local confections to bring back home. I can’t say enough about how hospitable our hosts and, in fact, all Egyptians were to us throughout our stay.

The train ride to Cairo was the first time I really felt like I was on vacation. I was able to get a room in Cairo overlooking the Nile and was impressed with the enormity of the city. I walked to a local restaurant and feasted on grilled pigeon which tasted great though consisted of about 3 ounces of actual meat. It was worth the try. Today I did a Griswald-paced tour of the Cairo museum and the pyramids of Giza. I get the sense that you really need 3-4 days to get the real feel of Cairo. It was a great conclusion to my week abroad.

I hope these posts gave a good sense of what we were up to while we were on the mission trip. As designed, these trips truly benefit the patients and the medical team to an equal degree. Thanks for reading.

Chip

~Croth