On My Rotation:
So, I’ve now been in the hospital 2 weeks and have spent 1 week with the medical students. The students are all really nice. They are doing their senior clerkship in OB/GYN and are in their sixth and final year of medical school. They therefore know a lot more than me. The good news for me is that the doctors and profs know that I don’t have any clinical experience, and so they let me answer questions if I want to and don’t make a fuss if I don’t answer them. I am soaking up a lot of information just being with the students, so It has been very worthwhile.

A lot of the students have traveled to the US, so they are aware of the major differences between their system and ours, and they enjoy discussing them with me. Mostly, it is a matter of money and availability. They especially like to point out that the things that we so heavily rely on to make diagnoses (scans/machines) they are using their clinical skills for since those scans are simply not available to the average Ghanian. Of course, many things they do not catch as early as we do, especially because their ability to screen people is very limited.

Some of the more common things I have seen here are fibroids, incomplete abortions, more fibroids, and more fibroids. I’ve seen a ton of babies. They are SOOO cute!!!!!! Today we were in Gyn clinic, so I took a couple of pictures of the exam room and the patient waiting area.













On my time outside of the hospital:
Every morning I wake up at 5:30 AM to the sound of roosters. I HATE ROOSTERS!!! I took some pictures of them on my morning walk into the hospital. The chickens and roosters just wander around wherever they please, and if that place happens to be next to my hostel at 5:30 in the morning they are waking me up!!! AHHHH I never ever want to see another rooster again in my life. This morning, I woke up to an even greater surprise than roosters-2 large cockroaches. I stepped on one and threw it out the door and my roommate did the same with the other.







The city of Accra itself is very dirty. Open sewers line the streets like trenches, and the smell on a hot day is quite nauseating. Moreover, people throw their garbage wherever they please. A major problem is that many people are extremely uneducated, and very poor. They therefore do as they please, and if they would like to throw their trash into the road or into the ocean that is simply what they do.









Everyone, though, is extremely nice. The kids are so adorable. They all stare or give me weird looks, though, because white people are simply not around here!. The kids will play soccer ANYWHERE there is room. The game is extremely popular (as it is everywhere in the world) and people talk about it constantly. I of course know nothing about soccer, but I smile and nod.

The city also has extremely bad traffic and the scariest drivers I have ever seen. It seems that there are no rules when it comes to driving. The only “rule” I have seen is that if someone honks it means they are going and you better get out of their way. I don’t know if you can see in the picture but there were cars at an intersection pretty much all going in different directions within a 10 foot radius. Every day it amazes me that I have yet to see a single accident.










Tonight we will be going out to Karaoke and maybe salsa dancing (the person who set up the exchange has planned out the evening for us). Tomorrow we are heading on a small weekend trip to see some waterfalls, watch people make beads, and go on a hike. Hopefully I will have lots of pictures from my trip for a post next week.