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This morning I headed straight over to SOS Medica after a quick free breakfast at the UB deli. The free breakfasts are a new thing here and are included in the 8,000 tugrik price ($8 Australian). It's usually just eggs, bread, and potato pieces, though sometimes they get the concept confused and end up serving crisps (American chips).
The taxi this morning was uneventful, fortunately, though they seem to be terrible at math. For example, somehow they want 2,000 tugrik for a 3.5 km journey at 350 tugrik/km. I have a hard time convincing them that my generous 1,500 is even more than what the agreed price was. Oh well. So I spent about an hour or so reviewing my powerpoint presentation with Dr. Gantulga and he gave me some good additional information to include. For example, the Mongolian medical community is very proud of their recent advances in surgery, which now include 20 kidney transplants last year. They are also very proud of their district hospitals that manage the bulk of the medical problems even with minimal supplies. We also reviewed my hypertension poster, and he was very impressed. He said he would translate it into Mongolian but I'm doubtful that will actually happen in time for me to get it published. I think I will hunt down someone else to do this as well, just so I can get it done. He seemed thrilled that his name and photo ended up in my presentation as well. It seems that acceptance from the international medical community, even from a student, is of huge importance.
When we finished up, I finally got to meet Dr. Philip, the director of SOS Medica Mongolia. He had apparently been in Ireland for a month or so doing some work on the side while on leave from SOS. He likes to travel around a bit and is perhaps planning on Australia, if logistics permit. He is from South Africa but both he and his wife have spent the majority of their lives traveling the world and living in various places for anywhere from 1 month to several years. The longest he spent at any one position was on a cruise line, on which he worked as the ships doctor, for 8 years. He's a very friendly guy but I think he'll be busy catching up. Batina, the outgoing clinical manager, is being replaced by a new person from Melbourne. The replacement arrived just a few days ago and so there are a lot of handovers going on at the moment.
After my meeting I headed over to the French Bakery again to do some more work and catch up on emails. I asked about various print services in town and was pointed to a building across the street. I wandered over and asked for the contact by name and had a good discussion with him about what I wanted. For 450,000 tugrik ($450), he could do the poster in PhotoShop, add some design elements, and print out 1,000 A3 size glossy posters. That works out to about 45 cents per poster, including all the professional services. I'll have to find some funds from somewhere if this is to get done. However, that's really not bad considering individual glossy photos cost 30 cents each in Australia.
After a call to Michelle for the day (which is becoming an increasingly important part of my day - I can't wait to get back and see her!), I headed over to the British Embassy for the Friday night "Steppe Inne". The "Steppe Inne" is the oldest pub in Mongolia, and is actually located on the grounds of the British Embassy. It's for British citizens only, or by invitation-only for others. Brigette, the 80-year old lady from Tuesday night's Hash House Harriers invited both me and Jonathan, the Australian geologist, to come along. We met over at her cafe, the Helmut Sachers, and got a ride in her driver's car.
When we got there, we just had to show our passports and our names were already on the list. The pathway led straight to the pub and the rest of the Embassy was closed off, as you'd expect. The pub was small, about 8m x 15m, and entirely lined in a pine-coloured wood. Behind the bar was a nerdy looking guy I recognised from Dave's pub, but looking very content at his role. I also recognised several others from Tuesday evening hike to the hills, and happened to meet Dr. Philip (from SOS) there as well. Batina was also there along with her replacement. On the way to the event, I was told by Brigette about a man who she knew who was a Chinese Traditional Medicine specialist in town. He apparently stayed with her while recovering from an acute Hep B infection because everyone else was scared to have him around because they didn't understand transmission routes. He was there and it was quite interesting to talk to him. However, the funny part is that the airy-fairy lady from the Buddhist cafe that I've been trying to avoid also mentioned this man by name. I didn't make the connection until he handed me his card and realised it was the same one she had written down for me. Wow, what a small world here!
I ended up chatting with Dr. Philip most of the time, and he filled me in about his life. He suggested to me not to go into surgery because of its lack of portability and its necessity to commit long hours to it during training. He said it's really not compatible with a good family life and it's much harder to move to different locations. I've sort of thought this as well but what he said does make sense. Based on what he knew of me, he suggested that Emergency Medicine would be the best for a few reasons. It has flexible hours, has high portability, can accommodate good family life, and is useful for expeditions, travel, and for work in rural and remote areas. He said GP is also good but that if he had it to do over again, he would have chosen Emergency instead of GP. This wasn't a choice when he was training. He said GP is also a good career path because you can get additional Emergency training as well, though it is a little less portable but really depends on your choice to work as a locum, as part of a clinic, or to set up your own practice.
I also got talking to a man named Richard, who happens to be president of the American School in UB. It's a large school mostly attended by Mongolians, but is geared towards those interested in international interests. He was telling me that a large number of the older students have been taking unauthorised time off from school because they had the excuse of "hand, foot, and mouth disease". Though only years 1-5 had time off, most students were taking their own holidays. Some of the teachers were also there, and expressed great concern that they wouldn't pass because progressing to the next grade depends mostly on attendance and day to day assessments rather than end-of-term assessments like many other places. Additionally, plagiarism is a big problem there because of easy access to the Internet, and he was very keen to hear about TurnItIn, a system whereby it compares electronically submitted work against an international database of previously submitted work and other sources available online.
The evening ended after a couple of hours and it was quite interesting to learn more about what happens here. The rest of the evening was fairly quiet and was spent watching a bad movie on TV at the guest house. So see ya later.
G'night!
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