Happy Friday: December 9th

December 09, 2022

Happy Friday: December 9th

This is a tiny 250 ml Coca-Cola. Many of you may recall the advent of my "Happy Friday" photo-text messages. In the dawn of the pandemic, making it to each Friday without contracting COVID became a reason to celebrate. Then, when I was activated for military duty in El Paso, Dallas, Austin and Tokyo, the "Happy Friday" celebrations continued. Today, I am celebrating my good fortune to be experiencing the spectacular culture and geography of Nepal. Although I have spent previous Fridays teaching at the Tribhuvan University Institute of Medicine School of Dentistry in Kathmandu, that school has a student holiday today, so I am in Dhulikhel.

I started my day consulting with the Dhulikhel Hospital's infection prevention and control team. Nurses here are referred to as "sisters." This is Sulekha sister, the head of the hospital's infection control program. She has the nicest computer and printer I have seen here.

Dr. Abha (center) is an OB/GYN tasked with quality assurance for the hospital. She is flanked by 2 nurses associated with the infection prevention program. I have been asked to assist in revising the documented infection control policies and protocols, and I am happy to oblige.

Everything is so civilized here. They brought tea to our morning meeting and also offered me Yomari -- a rice flour pastry filled with a milk-cocoanut paste. At first, I thought these were some boiled root vegetable, but they are actually a delicious delicacy. Yomaris are a Newari celebratory food. Yesterday was a Newari holiday. Newars are one of the many ethnicities in Nepal.

After the meeting, I donned a gown, surgical shoes and a headcover, and toured the OR area. The facility has 7 very-well equipped operating rooms.

This is the post acute care unit (PACU) nurses' station.

I could see into two ORs. One was a spine surgery and the other was an orthopedic knee procedure. These ORs have fancy automated sliding doors. This is a teaching hospital, so there are many observing students/residents.

In addition to many C-arm x-ray machines, they have this "O-arm" machine. I have never seen an O-Arm before.

These are the hospital's 3 primary autoclaves.

This is a tally of the procedures done at the hospital in November. You can see that they are very busy with surgical cases -- 764 cases in November.

I ate lunch at the Canteen. I had chicken with fried rice. It was really good, but I couldn't eat it all. The portions here are always large.

Some of my colleagues enjoyed "Beaten Rice," which is a Nepali food. It seems like a dried and rolled/pressed rice grain. It is typically mixed with a vegetable or meat goulash. I prefer the boiled or fried rice.

These are my lunch colleagues, left to right: Dash, Anil, Manisha and Nis. Nis is a dental technician and senior dental student from Hamburg, Germany who is here visiting until January 12.