Abby's learning at her placement, in the classroom, and through gaining new awareness

This week I started my internship at Tafelsig Community Clinic, which is a primary care facility in Mitchell’s Plain that is government funded. It’s been an amazing experience so far and I’ve already learned so much. I worked in ‘The Club’ this week which sees patients with hypertension and diabetes. I was able to take blood pressure and check glucose levels in the blood through pricking fingers. I even had the opportunity to speak to some patients about their hypertension and ways they can help themselves live better with it such as eating better and exercising. Beyond that, I had the opportunity to observe Sister Castle seeing patients (nurses are called Sisters), and learn how to perform an HIV test, do an EKG, and prepare an oxygen tank.

It’s crazy how different everything is. There are no rules like HIPPA, so there’s no privacy at all. Patients can handle their own files and people walk in on consultations all of the time. It’s also interesting how there are basically no appointments. Patients have to get to the clinic super early and line up to get in to see the doctors and nurses. The biggest difference for me so far has been the filing system. Patient information is not on computers like at home, so there’s just a room with rows and rows of files, some of which is organized, but most of which is not. Everyday we have to pull out patient files as patients come in, and if the file is not in the designated location, it’s impossible to know where else it could be mixed in. Another interesting thing we’ve noticed is that it is very common for preachers to come in to the clinic and preach to all of the patients. They engage patients in songs and prayers and it is completely accepted. Our co-workers were shocked to hear that at home it is not acceptable to express religious preferences in public. Overall, I have really enjoyed interacting with my coworkers and exchanging cultural norms about each of our countries. My favorite thing was explaining to them what a party-size pizza is and seeing their shock about it!

We also had our first class with Vincent this week and it was very interesting. We learned about some of the history here in South Africa, mostly about apartheid. I had not known much about apartheid prior to coming here, so I was really relieved to finally learn about a lot of the people and events that were pertinent to the process. As we’ve learned more about apartheid, I’ve been paying more attention to the lyrics of Kendrick Lamar’s album ‘To Pimp a Butterfly’. I had never focused much on the lyrics, but words such as ‘apartheid’ and ‘Nelson’ or ‘Mandela’ started jumping out at me, and I’ve now been looking more into the album. He discusses everything including survivor’s guilt for getting out of poverty as a black man, black stereotypes, Kunta Kinte, his reflections from visiting South Africa, current events like Trayvon Martin, and more. He also discusses his struggle coming into celebrity and not knowing how to use his influence in regards to the black population. I also watched an interview with Kendrick about the album (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu4Pz9PjolI) and one thing that stood out to me was when he said “how can I be a voice for all of these people around the world?” A big part of the album is him realizing we need to educate future generations to change society and make a difference, and I thought this was a really good perspective to add to what we’ve been learning.