Ready...Set...

Whew, what a week! Between studying for the supplementary exam, taking the exam itself, and getting ready for my elective in Zambia, the whole week was over before I knew it.

The exam on Wednesday went all right, I thought. I felt better about it afterwards than I did after the last exam. The examiners didn’t tell me whether I passed or not. I am sure the med school will let me know if I don’t pass again. So in this case, no news is good news.

In the mean time, I have been trying to get ready for my elective in Zambia. Running between the university student health, the two major hospitals in Brisbane, and different shops, I have been getting my vaccines, medications, and stuff I will need for eight weeks in Africa. After dropping some serious cash, I am all set with everything I need: vaccine shots, malaria prophylaxis and empirical treatment, broad spectrum antibiotics, tablets for traveler’s diarrhea, activated charcoal capsules, water purification tablets, and the most important of them all: post-HIV exposure prophylaxis pack. At times I feel like I am being excessive, but I know Murphy’s Law dictates that if I don’t take it with me, I will need to use it at some point.

Thus armed with enough medication to supply a small pharmacy in a third-world country, I am ready to take my first journey to Africa. I will spend eight weeks at a mission hospital in rural Zambia. I am sure I will see so much that I would never see in Australia – all those exotic tropical diseases, HIV, late presentations of every disease, malnutrition; the list goes on. This will be the most unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and probably the most stressful situation I have yet to face in my life. On the flip side, it will also be a great learning experience, both in terms of medicine and in terms of life experience. So, here we go. T minus fifteen hours and counting…