First day in Addis Ababa: 12/28

Arrived yesterday after an uneventful 13 1/2 hr. non-stop trip from
Washington Dulles. The iInitial part of the trip to European mainland
was a chip shot; after that it got a little tedious.

Things often don't go smoothly here and sure enough there was no one
ostensibly waiting for me at the airport. After looking unsuccessfully
thru the throngs for a sign that might have my name, a woman was nice
enough to offer her cell phone. Called Akeza Teame who was supposed
to have a driver waiting for me and got a wrong number. Called his
hospital and no answer. Taking a taxi would have been no problem, but
I did not know the location of the apartment where i was to be
staying. Finally called Rick (Hodes) and he said he could come for
me. He told me to go to parking lot to wait for him and guess who was
at bottom of walkway . . Akeza! He has a new phone number since last
year.

He drove me to the apartment he was going to let me use; no more than
5 minutes from the airport. A large 3 bedroom apartment, 3rd floor
walk up. Fortunately the guard/doorman lifted my 60 lb. instrument
laden duffel onto his shoulders and carried it up for me.

Today I was awakened by the rooster in my neighbor's yard. I paused
for a moment of reflection to thank Akeza for the pleasure of hot
water. If I were in the apartment I was supposed to be in on the
hospital grounds, I would not have had this amenity.

Once outside, it was like morning in Vail; cool, a bright sun, soon to
warm up to 70 degrees. I took a taxi to the hospital. The driver
thought for a moment after giving me a good look up and down and said
the fare would be 100 birr (an obvious farengi, Amharic for foreigner,
fee). After walking away twice we settled on 50 birr, still more than
a local would pay.

I immediately felt at home in the gray, dark, unlighted passageway
leading to the four flights of stairs up to our conference room. I
was delighted to recognize the residents from last year. After a
report of the usual overnight two depressed skull fractures, fall from
scaffolding, etc., I elected to spend the day at the Korean Hospital
(also known as MCM Hospital -- you can google it). This is a private,
very profitable hospital on a large tract of land donated to the
Korean Christian Missionaries who founded it.

I was wonderfully at home in the O.R., today quizzing both the
attending and resident in Socractic fashion regarding the planned two
cases. My training under the tutelage of Bill Collins at Yale was
today passed on to yet another generation. At first gently, and then a
little more forcefully I led them to re-think their surgical plan in
both cases, the first a meningomyelocele (i.e. spina bifida) in a
three month old, and the second a large herniated disk.

After surgery we made rounds on a virtual neurosurgical museum of
post-operative cases. Most of the patients had huge tumors, that
would never have attained that size in the U.S. as the patient's long
ago would have presented to their doctor with symptoms. All patients
seemed to be doing very well. We then went to see three patients who
had been admitted while we were in surgery. Two had huge hypertensive
hemorrhages that were inoperable; the third had a small hemorrhage in
a vital area. I don't expect any of them to survive.

We finally had lunch at 3:00, at a pizza place on the way back to the
Black Lion Hospital. My host ordered a "fasting" pizza. Fasting
occurs twice every week (Wed and Fri) for Ethiopian Christian
Orthodox, in addition to 40 days of "fasting" prior to Easter.
Fasting, however, is not what it means to us. To them it means no
meat or dairy products for the day. Our vegetarian pizza with tuna
was excellent.

Rick is getting some people together for dinner tonite and I will be
joining them. A very memorable day for me, in which I was energized
by the opportunity for some meaningful teaching moments.