Swimming in the Ganges and learning Hindi (only one is true)

The sun rose early this morning as we sat in a boat on the holy Ganges River overlooking the Dashashwamedh Ghat. Yellow and red sun rays illuminated the ancient buildings and marked the beginning of a new day. For locals, it was a chance to bathe in the holy river next to a dead cow for good karma and to cleanse their sins. For us it also marked an end to our first week in Varanasi.

Our work at G S Memorial began days earlier with introductions to hospital administrators, staff, nurses, and surgeons. On the first day we met with Dr. Subodh in his office to review our interim report, further discuss the project scope and our plan for the week. Ansari, the hospital ward master, and our new friend, gave us a tour of the six-floor, 80-bed hospital and showed us what would be our office for the next two weeks. We received a very warm welcome from all the G S Memorial staff as well as curious looks from many patients. Before the day ended we spoke with the in-house speech therapist to understand how she is currently using telemedicine for follow-up appointments.  She and Dr. Subodh also created tutorials on DVDs and cassette tapes to complement the therapy sessions.

Overall, some major accomplishments this week! Daniel learned Hindi in an afternoon and almost completed an interview in the foreign language, but the patients were laughing so hard that the linguistics lesson was called off prematurely. He resorted to English (with a Hindi accent of course) to complete the survey, which created a window into the patients’ lives and experiences. Legends of Dr. Subodh and his gifted hands bring people from all over India to the clinic. While some live down the street, many have traveled the larger part of a day or longer seeking his expertise. Open cooking fires increase the prevalence of burn injuries in this region of the world. Others travel from afar with cleft lips and palates, which have prevented them from speaking clearly, kept them out of school and resulted in malnutrition.

Yesterday was an important day for the team and Dr. Subodh as we launched the hospital’s first telemedicine prototype. With the help of IT staff we set-up two rooms equipped with 3G wireless connection and laptops with cameras. Dr. Subodh remotely assessed five patients in between his scheduled operations. The prototype proved to be successful and taught us how we could improve from both a technical and patient management standpoint. The patients responded enthusiastically to their first telemedicine experience and even said they would pay for the service if it was located in a clinic near their home. Our learnings will allow us to adjust and prepare for our second telemedicine trial in Muzzafapur, 10 hours north of Varanasi, during a G S Memorial Sunday screening camp.