Dumela Ma?

That's "How are you, Ma'am," which is about all I've learned to say in Setswana so far. Luckily pretty much everyone also speaks English.

I arrived in Gabarone (the capitol) Friday and am getting settled nicely into my rented room not far from the center of town and the main hospital here.

This is the start of a 5 week rotation via the Harvard Botswana Partnership at the Scottish Livingtone Hospital (as in Dr. Livingstone I presume. seriously) in Molepolole, about an hour from here. Tomorrow I start the work of clearing my phsyician's licensure so that I can officially practice here. The general plan is to then start working at SLH in a combination of sort of a "clinician educator" role working with the MOs (Medical Officers- the housestaff, except it's more of a 1year or more job than an academic learning position) which means that I'll be the "internal medicine specialist" doing teaching and helping out on rounds and also spending some time in the outpatient RVD (RetroViral Disease is code for HIV) clinics. BHP is working on some fabulous research here as well, which I won't be actually joining, but hope to at least scope out for future ventures. Work here ranges from being a large clinical testing site for the candidate HIV vaccine to various studies on optimal treatment of tuberculosis and HIV co-infection, timing of starting HIV treatment etc.

So far, I don't have much of a sense of things other than that this place is WAY further ahead financially/development-wise than my last few posts (Mozambique, India). Being in a country full of diamond, gold, and uranium mines with a small population makes a pretty big difference. Water from the tap is potable. Waterpressure, stable electricity, and fast internet abound. It was easy (albeit a little expensive comparatively) to find soymilk, gluten free products, and greek yogurt at the supermarket. I'm preparing myself for getting to the hospital, where apparently the physical plant is not so lacking, it just that the lab isn't always running for even basic test, no one knows how to use the brand-new ventillators or echocardiogram machine, and so much of the equiptment goes unused.

Hopefully, this trip will bring many good experiences. If I can see some interesting cases and help share some of my knowledge, and get a sense for the work going on here, then we'll call this a success.