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Welcome to Our Blog

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG

As anyone who has participated in UConn's Education Abroad in Cape Town will tell you, there are no words to adequately explain the depth of the experiences, no narratives to sufficiently describe the hospitality of the people, and no pictures to begin to capture the exquisite scenery. Therefore this blog is only intended to provide an unfolding story of the those co-educators who are traveling together as companions on this amazing journey.

As Resident Director of this program since 2008 it is once again my privilege and honor to accompany another group of remarkable students to this place I have come to know and love.

In peace, with hope,
Marita McComiskey, PhD

(marita4peace@gmail.com)

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Eric's reflections on his time at Tafelsig Clinic

It’s getting harder and harder to pretend that our semester in Cape Town is never going to end and that it is still only January, not April. I have come a long way in terms of understanding more about the United States, the world, race, gender, class, the economy, and the media. I am seeing things that I never used to see, and I am thinking about things that I never used to think about. But, more on that in my final blog post next week. Today, I want to reflect upon the place where I spent 7 hours a day, 3 days a week expanding my medical knowledge and deepening my passion for the discipline: Tafelsig Clinic.

Going into this internship, I was resolute in my determination to enter the healthcare field as a physician assistant, but I had little practical experience to show for it. I completed a short 3-month shadowing experience at Danbury Hospital in high school and have worked as a lifeguard for the past 3 summers, but I was still missing important skills such as taking blood pressure, counseling patients, and measuring blood glucose levels. Starting on our first day, I quickly learned how to do all that and more. I cannot emphasize enough how welcoming and patient each doctor or nurse was towards us, always willing to have us shadow them or practice a skill that is useful in their department. Now, three months after starting, I have been exposed to a variety of sub-disciplines in primary care: curative adults, chronic adults, sick children, family planning, mental health, and antenatal care. In completing these rotations, I not only learned more about what doctor-patient interactions are like and how to work through a treatment plan, but I also gained so much hands-on experience that would have been extremely difficult to get in the United States. I am returning home able to take blood pressure, triage patients for their symptoms, measure glucose levels, present health education talks, give injections, and even draw blood. These will all be valuable as I complete my EMT course this summer and begin seeking internships and applying to PA school.

Naturally, with the ups came the downs. Some of the most emotionally and mentally challenging days from my semester took place at the clinic. As I discussed in a previous blog post, just over a month after we started, a mother brought her unresponsive 6-week-old baby to the clinic, but the resuscitation attempt was unsuccessful and we lost the child. A few weeks ago, an unresponsive 4-year-old was brought to the clinic, and though we carried out the resuscitation protocol for over 45 minutes, we were again unable to revive the boy. This incident was especially hard on me because frustratingly, the ambulance did not arrive for over an hour after we called it, and because this time I participated in the chest compression rotations, which made the event a little more personal. Although nothing was quite as devastating as that, it was still difficult to see how the facility was impacted by lack of adequate financial resources. Patients wait at the clinic for hours due to limited staffing, and sometimes they cannot receive the proper treatment or medication due to unavailable equipment. Yet, the quality of care the patients are able to receive is a true testament to the dedication, adaptability, and compassion of the staff.

I am also going to miss people of Mitchells Plain who gave the clinic its unique character. They laughed at my inability to pronounce some of their names and grilled me on my support of Donald Trump. They smiled as I practiced my Afrikaans greetings on them, and I reciprocated when some of them labored through their symptoms in English. I met men who killed and went to prison, and women who ran away from the abuse of their husbands. But most importantly, I never met anyone who didn’t readily embrace Derek, Paige, Abby, or me as learners and valuable assets to the clinic. We were often commended for the work we did and wished a happy and safe stay in Cape Town. They could be understandably loud and unruly at times, but it was the variety of interactions that made each day so unique.


Sister Castle played an invaluable role as a mentor and teacher this semester, and for that I will be forever grateful. I am going to miss her little pearls of wisdom and occasional goofing off in the face of a hectic working environment. I know that I would not have grown and learned as much as I did without her continued support, and I am definitely going to make sure that we stay in touch after I leave.

Eric, Sister Castle & Derek
Eric, Sister Castle & Paige


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