Initial Reflections on my placement in Tanzania

I think that it would be appropriate to say before beginning that it has been rather overdue; for me to write some new content for this blog. I most certainly haven't lived up to my personal goals in terms of the amount of content that I intended to write beforehand. But with that elephant in the room at least slightly addressed, I think it's about time that something was said about my time in Tanzania; which, was frankly an out of this world experience!

Yes, out of this world! I do think that it can be somewhat clichéd to write about certain types of new experiences in such superlatives, yet I cannot help to say that this of my time Tanzania. It was a 'life-changing experience'. It is for this reason I want to take the time to do the entire experience some justice, both for my personal reflection and to share my experiences with other students, Radiographers and other interested parties.

I would like to begin the journey by giving a brief overview of my placement experience. 

This was obviously the main reason that I was in Tanzania to undertake my Diagnostic Radiography elective placement, during this time; I worked between two hospitals: Muhimbili National Hospital and Muhimbili Orthopaedic Institute. These two separate institutions are located on a single campus alongside the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences. The former of these two hospitals, the National Hospital, is one of the premier teaching hospitals in the country and as the name implies, takes referrals from across the country. With its hand-written reports being made from film and trips to the darkroom a necessity; it was fair to say that this was far from my norms, yet extremely exciting. Though the hospital was fairly well equipped with: Conventional and Fluoroscopic Radiology, CT, MRI and Ultrasound. With this mixture of equipment and range of referrals: the caseloads were fairly varied and interesting. This became particularly apparent for me in fluoroscopy, where I got to see procedures that I have never seen before, for example a Matriculating Cystogram; the experience has certainly left my portfolio with some rarer examinations. I also saw some difficult things, for which I do not want to be overly critical for that seems to easy. Yet there were issues with patient care and technique, to name a few, but I think the real issues at hand were a lack of funding and perhaps harshly: a lack of knowledge. I think that was something a lot of the students within the Work the World house struggled to deal with at times, having the difficulty to see outdated and poor techniques used across the board.

The other hospital, the Orthopaedic Institute, had a different situation on its hands: the main orthopaedic, trauma and neurology centre for the whole of the Dar es Salaam region; yet currently lacking in CT and MRI. This means that patients have to be sent over to the National Hospital for their cross-sectional imaging. Which is fine, until you are dealing a fairly major trauma situation and the patient has blood gushing from their skull: as attempts are made to produce plain-film skull radiographs. Overall this lead to an eye-opening experience, where I got to see some interesting fractures though often as the go-to-person for using the CR reader.

The contact that I did get with patients in both hospitals was varied: as despite the official language status of English, a majority of people could only speak a few basic phrases. This left me using the rather basic phrases that I had learnt in Swahili beforehand and during my time in Tanzania, or quite often a range of non-verbal communication methods. This was actually really part of the experience that was worth having, it really struck home to me the importance the learning of other languages than our mother-tongue, even (especially!) for us English speakers!

Overall I have little to nothing to complain about during my time in Tanzania, and there is a lot more that needs to be said. But, I want to take my time and reflect properly on my experience, this is something where time taken to reflect seems to help. I do have plenty more content including some 'photo-essay' style posts and more reflections, both on the hospital and Work the World experience. I would also like to touch a little more on Swahili and talk about the country in general. I think that I will work on this over a longer period of time, for that will allow me to really share my experiences in a comprehensive manner.

Radiotherapy in Tanzania!

As I have previously mentioned, I am not the only winner of the 'Society and College of Radiographer's International Elective Competition'; with the competition awarding this exciting opportunity of an international elective placement to two of the Society's student members.

I would therefore like to this opportunity to introduce you to to +Kim Balsdon, a Radiotherapy and Oncology student at Cardiff University, she too will be travelling to Dar es Salaam. Excitingly, she has also chosen to write a blog about her coming experiences: http://tanzaniaradiotherapy.blogspot.co.uk/

I would highly recommend keeping an eye on her blog, as she will be travelling to Tanzania in June; therefore her experiences in the country should be posted in near future. I know that I shall certainly be monitoring it, with the hope of gaining some insight of what to expect in Tanzania.

I am also going to take this opportunity to mention and thank David Evans, a previous winner of the competition and Radiotherapist, who also travelled to Dar es Salaam for his placement. You can view his experiences in Tanzania via Facebook, including interesting updates and photographs concerning the cancer centre in Dar es Salaam. I must admit that I emailed him over a month ago asking if he would like to share a short piece about his experiences in Tanzania, I have been beyond tardy in acting upon his swift reply; however this seems the appropriate moment to share with you what he said:

I can’t believe that it’s nearly two years since I was out in Tanzania on my Work the World adventure! When I met the two most recent winners of the competition at the Annual Student Conference it was hard to put into words how much I valued the experience and how much it meant to me both personally and professionally. As the first winner of the competition it was a voyage into the unknown both for myself and the team at Work the World…but I can honestly say it was one of the most challenging and also uplifting experiences of my life.

Work the World make it very clear that you are out there to experience life as it is rather than trying to change it, which is difficult in two ways. Firstly, as healthcare professionals we are focused on providing a level of care which is supported by some of the best equipment and facilities in the world. Say what you like about the NHS but comparatively we have life very easy, and it can be difficult not to be shocked by the differences. Secondly, Dar is nowhere near the normal tourist trail so seeing a “mzungu” becomes quite a talking point, and a lot of time was spent comparing cultural differences. Also, being so different compared to the locals (this means tall and very pale) made blending in very difficult.

The Work the World house in Dar is incredible. Well, except the cold showers…I never got used to them! All of the staff are so generous with their time and within days you feel like part of a very large family. There was such a blend of people there from different professions and of different ages, it was a great inter-disciplinary learning experience. I should also say that although Work the World is based around working placements, there is plenty of time to explore the area and the culture first-hand, including weekend trips on safari and to the island of Zanzibar.

When Richard asked me to write a short piece about my experience I was a bit apprehensive; firstly, peoples’ holiday stories are never that interesting and because I had such an amazing time while I was out there I thought it would just sound like someone droning on about their gap year and about how it’s changed them in such a deep and spiritual way. But more importantly, I didn’t want my experience to shape Richard or Kim’s view of Tanzania. Winning the Work the World competition is a once-in-a-lifetime experience but half the fun is not knowing what it’s going to be like. So all I would say to anyone who is going to Tanzania would be learn as much Swahili as possible, take lots of mosquito repellent, and throw yourself into everything Work the World and Tanzania has to offer.

My congratulations go out to both winners of the SCoR’s Work the World competition: Richard Betteridge and Kimberley Balsdon…it’s an experience you’ll never forget!