Tuesday, January 13: Best day yet

Yordanis

Today was all about neurosurgery (and friends tonight).  Started the day with the usual morning summary of trauma from the night before and follow up on patients operated yesterday.   Yordanis, our only female resident (there is actually one more in the first year, but they rotate on other specialties) was presenting.

Next was my weekly clinic that ranges from hectic to even more hectic.  I have a room which is shared with a resident off in a corner at a very small desk.  We were each seeing patients when it became apparent that he wanted me to see his patients with him.  Turned out to be a wonderful bonding experience with one of the more junior residents who I had not known previously.  He clearly wanted to hear my approach to things and devoured every word out of my mouth.  We saw many fascinating patients together, and in the middle of this Jonathan, one of Rick’s two assistants for the year appeared with a computer full of x-rays and patient summaries he wanted me to review and one patient.  The patient is a young man with either a craniopharyngioma or giant aneursym.  The most interesting of the other patients was a weird anomaly of the cervical spine with a tumor (oval structure near the top of the linear S-curved spinal cord (no, that is not the normal configuration).

oval tumor in front of top of s-shaped spinal cord

radiologist with tic

Next I saw a radiologist who came from Awassa, a town 275 km from here.  He has been suffering with trigeminal neuralgia (tic douloureux) for >15 years and heard that I could cure it.  His case is unusual in that he has had it since his late teens, so I insisted upon an MRI to be sure he did not have some weird cause for it; MRI was normal so we will do surgery in the morning. Another patient with tic had five teeth removed before it occurred to someone that it might not be a tooth problem.

another patient with tic to be operated tomorrow

After much more teaching

some of the residents with me today

and an exhausting number of patients I was through.  Took two minibuses back to my hotel, caught up on email and paperwork and found another great place for lunch.

There have been several plumbing and electrical issues in my room, and the manager has been great about having things fixed.  Everything is now whole.

As I was resting before dinner I had a call from Azarius, a resident who just completed his residency 2 weeks ago (they are allowed 6 months paid vacation after completing a 5 year residency), and is getting married next Monday.  I have been invited to the wedding at the Sheraton (the Addis equivalent of the St. Regis in New York) and a personal invitation is required for admittance.  He was here to personally deliver it to me.

Tonight I am going to dinner with Dan Combs, one of Rick’s assistants from last year who liked it enough to return for several months to work on some special projects on his own.  Jonathan, one of his assistants this year, will also be joining us.  One of my favorite (French) restaurants, La Mandoline, has moved since last year and I no longer know where it is, so these friends are coming to the hotel and we will walk there, perhaps a mile or two from here.  

A good time to mention one of the unique characteristics of Addis.  There are no addresses in Addis, and street names are meaningless and never used.  Hence when you inquire about directions,  reference is made to a known building or landmark nearby, but it could be anywhere within a half mile!