I’ve combed through the earlier pages of the blog several times this week to try to give people a better picture of where we’re going, so I thought I’d put together a post that paints a picture of Kijabe a little more concisely. Some of this is repeat if you’ve been following closely, but other info might be new

It’s about an hour Northwest of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. There’s actually a satellite image on Google Maps if you want to see the detail. We’ll be living at Kijabe Mission station, not the town with the same name about 2 km away. In the Maasai  language, it means “place of the wind” and the town sits perched at about 7,200 feet above sea level on the edge of the Great Rift Valley. You’re not going to find it in any books on Kenya, because its a little collection of houses, hospitals and schools down a 6 km dirt road off the main highway, but we’re excited to call it home.

 

Unlike a lot of doctors in the post-residency program, we have the advantage of having been where we’re going, so we have a general idea what to expect. AIC Kijabe Hospital is a 320 bed mission hospital that takes care of adults and kids that was established in 1915 (so we’ll be there for the 100 year anniversary).

Here’s a picture from a house when it was being built we received from on of our friend’s husband’s grandfather who helped found it. . .

I didn’t venture much into the adult side of things, but the pediatric side consists of  a simple and efficient concrete building with common wards, an OR, a nursery, and an ICU. It is a training hospital with residents and fellows assigned there to learn  general specialties as well as pediatric neurosurgery and pediatric surgery (giving us the amazing advantage of being able to address those issues quickly, which is no small miracle).

We have a wonderful pharmacy, and the pathology lab does tissue diagnostics for 37 mission hospitals in East Africa

A little bit of everything, it seems – from well newborn babies, to premature infants, to infants with severe birth defects, to meningitis, bronchiolitis, asthma, pneumonia, tuberculosis, AIDS, severe malnutrition, gastroenteritis (both bacterial and viral), heart disease of all sorts,  infections, birth defects from viruses mostly prevented by vaccines here, children waiting to have shunt placed by neurosurgery or to get healthy enough to have a corrective surgery by the pediatric surgeons, malaria (although not as much as you would think because of our elevation), and then countless other things I can’t even begin to imagine. Like medicine in the states, the body is an amazing thing both in the way it manages to get sick and the way it heals. Every day was filled with surprise, failure, small victories, and constant learning.

When I get there, 4 pediatricians will make up the team of doctors taking care of the kids in Kijabe.

  Jennifer Myhre has been in Africa 20 years and Kenya for 4. She and her husband are American, but they carry the weight and wisdom of having created a home in Africa for so many years. She has 4 fantastic kids, and I can’t wait to begin to learn from her. She’s also an amazing writer, and you can probably learn more about what we’re going to be doing from reading her blog than from mine.

(http://paradoxuganda.blogspot.com/)

Sarah Muma and Imma Kariuki are both Kenyan pediatricians working at the hospital. They are both moms, wives, and amazing role models.  Imma is there now (although currently on maternity leave with her son), and Sara will be moving back about a month before us with her husband who is a pediatric surgeon.

Mardi Steere is a pediatric emergency medicine doctor from Australia who did her EM training in Florida. Right now, she’s the medical director of the entire hospital, so I won’t get to work with her directly in patient care at first. She was the doctor that greeted me during my meltdown at the end of my first call weekend, and she already has a knack for knowing me a bit better than I know myself. We loved our time with her, her husband Andy, and their two kids that are close to Madeline and Belle’s age, and we can’t wait to get to know them better.  Their blog is amazing as well, and Mardi’s husband is a jack-of-all trades engineer theologian and his perspective might give you a better idea of things David may find himself doing.

(http://www.steeres.com)

Eric Hansen is the pediatric surgeon that we’ll be working with (along with Sara’s husband, whom he trained) – and the reason that we found Kijabe in the first place. He was a surgery fellow when I was a resident and may be one of the most generous, caring, down to earth physicians I have ever met.  4 years ago when he and his wife sat on our couch and joked that they needed a pediatrician for their kids in Kenya, we had no idea where the road would lead us. Their kids are also close to the girls ages and we are looking forward to learning from them as well.

(http://uncommonroad.blogspot.com/)

Between the four of us, we will need to cover the wards, consults, ICU, outpatient, and nursery/NICU. Most days will be 8-6ish and then I’ll take call  about once a week and every 4th weekend. We have some wonderful other physicians that help split call to make that possible, but as people come and go, have babies, or get sick (one of the pediatricians there now had a ruptured appendicitis last month) it will probably be bit busier than that sounds. I’m excited to be working with women that have families, and who, even in my short time there, reminded me of the importance of balance and boundaries. More sick children and more work always exist, and it will be a constant struggle and challenge to find the place where I can be mom, wife, physician, and friend with grace and joy.

Okay, perhaps there will be a part three to the this post, but there’s a glimpse of the next phase of our lives.