On Work: The Blur of the First Two Days

First, a sincere thanks to those who have been reading my blog (and a special thanks to those who have been commenting on it)! I promise I will get pictures up soon!

After calling Paul to make sure I was heading in the correct direction, I left for work on my first day clad in my new welly boots (and yes, for those of you who were wondering if it was even raining, it was)! Shortly after I arrived at the office and changed my shoes (a little bit past 8am-- just like at CRA, right John? Ben?), Ian gave Vijay (a Clinton Foundation volunteer who also started on Monday) and me a quick tour of the office and then discussed a number of logistical issues with us: safety, reimbursement, email, hours, building access, etc.

The formal, content based training began when Richard arrived in the office at around 9:30. Rich is on the Laboratory Systems Global Team, and was a large proponent of creating my position: the Laboratory Systems Analyst in Uganda. I should mention that CHAI is divided by both regional and thematic areas. Thus, I am on the Uganda country team, but I focus specifically on the Ugandan laboratory system. In this way, I have a base/support network both in my country team, and in the larger Lab Systems Global Team. (This, of course, was a very familiar concept to me from my time at CRA, where I identified as part of both the DC and Life Sciences teams.)

Now, a few very important words on Rich. To any Swatties reading this, Rich has an uncanny resemblance to John Boonstra. His incredibly intelligent and soft-spoken manner, not to mention his smile, laughter, and overall physical appearance were *so* familiar. In fact, I spent most of Monday dying to get up and give Rich a huge hug. Thankfully, I restrained myself.

Beyond his intense similarity to Boonie, Rich was unbelievably helpful. Though some of the morning was dedicated to discussing CHAI's structure and the people with whom I'd be interacting most directly, Rich spent the majority of Monday getting me up to speed on details of the HIV virus, and its stages and treatments. This included descriptions of the instruments used to test HIV, periods during which one can test using each technology, pricing of said technology, etc.

At around 3pm, Rich paused the formal training and briefed me for our 3:30 meeting with William and Gasbarg, two employees from the Central Public Health Laboratory (CPHL), which is (ideally) responsible for overseeing and monitoring all of the public health labs throughout Uganda.

Without going into too much detail (to prevent you from rapidly click on the convenient red “X” in the upper right hand corner of this window), one of the largest problems with the Ugandan public laboratory system is that a significant portion of the equipment currently in labs is simply non-functional. Whether because of lack of maintenance, misuse, instrument malfunction, voltage issues, etc., many crucial machines just do not work. My first meeting with CPHL included the discussion of a service contract with manufacturers to monitor and maintain the laboratory equipment on a regular basis. For this, CPHL must know which machines are mal- or non-functioning at any given moment, and the creation of a database/tracking system is one of the first initiatives on which I’ll be working!

After the meeting with CPHL, Ian, Rich and I returned to the CHAI office, where Rich and I did another two odd hours of training. During the latter half of the day, I learned all about Early Infant Diagnoses (EID) of HIV, including the sampling method, instruments used to procure samples, process by which samples are analyzed, products both for sample collection and sample analysis, and the various manufacturers with which CHAI works most frequently.

Needless to say, I passed out shortly after I arrived home at around 9pm.

On Tuesday, I didn’t even set foot in the CHAI office until around 5:45pm. Ian picked me from home at 7:45am and after picking up Rich, we drove to a morning meeting with the Joint Clinical Research Center (JCRC) and the Supply Chain Management System (SCMS). A number of different topics were discussed, among them the quantification of JCRC’s lab needs for which I will be responsible. Post the joint meeting, I ventured into my first lab: a JCRC managed lab in central Kampala. I spoke at length with Peter, the doctor in charge of the CD4 (HIV monitoring) lab, about the timing of sample analysis, number of samples processed per day, bottlenecks, etc. It gave me a fantastic sense of the system that I’m tasked with improving.

After a rapid working lunch with Vijay during which we viewed a PowerPoint documenting the bottlenecks with EID in Cameroon, the four of us headed back to CPHL, where I met sequentially with Charles (responsible for EID) and William (a follow-up meeting regarding the maintenance database).

Needless to say, the first two days were a complete whirlwind. Wednesday and Thursday have both been slightly more relaxed, as I’ve been in the CHAI office and have had an opportunity to orient myself and begin working on my various initiatives.

I shall end this entry, as there are others I’d like to commence pertaining to delicious Indian restaurants, car fumes, and ants, in no particular order. But, I wanted first to give you a sense of what I’ve begun doing professionally, and really, why I came to Uganda.