Thursday 21 October 2010

Not using my own computer this time, so no photos unfortunately, just a brief update on what's happened over the past two days. I've actually finished my time in Mulago School for Orthopaedic Technology, though not entirely with the students. I've been sitting in with the students in some of their lectures, buried in a crowd of 74 in that tiny room I posted a picture of the other day. It's pretty mental and everyone's all bunched up together somehow, most with seats... I got a chance to go around and talk to some of the students, and their knowledge is pretty fantastic on human anatomy and what's being taught and only a couple of lessons were literally "rained off" through thunderstorms. One of the students explained that usually if there's any sort of an excuse for a lecturer not to make it, then they'll usually fail to turn up (with the exception of Mr Kyondo) and one lecturer hasn't taught in over two months!

Yesterday, after classes here, Dr Wanume took me to the weekly meeting of the Rotary club of Kymbogo in Kampala. I didn't actually realise that I was going to be the guest speaker for the evening until half way through a mouthful of peanuts and beer, I was asked to come up and talk about the progress so far. I think I did pretty well considering it was improvised and answered a few interesting questions on the differences between Jaipur feet and more Western designs. I went on to explain that really, although the foot is very simple in nature, it IS it's simplicity that lends itself very well to certain situations. I feel so far that the jaipur limb should just be considered another tool in the prosthetists tool box. It doesn't necessarily need to be used, but it's good to know that it's there and can be prescribed for cases where poorer patients may not be able to afford or maintain a more expensive limb.

Anyway, 15 of the 74 3rd year students are coming to the great lakes rehabilitation centre (GLRC) tomorrow for training and education in the Jaipur limb, and I'll be demonstrating with the knowledge  that I've gained so far whilst being out here...how to manufacture it. I've got help from Patrick and Fred, but it's still going to be a tight schedule to squash the making of 3 legs from start to finish in in one day. To get an indication of how much time to allow for each stage, I asked one of the students how long it takes them to rectify a cast. They told me between 1 1/2 hours to 2. I've allowed them 30 mins. Should be interesting...

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