Weekend in Gabs

We’re spending the weekend hanging close to Gabs (the popular, shortened name of Gaborone, the city in which I’m living and the capital of Botswana). One of the nice aspects of this rotation is that we get the weekends off (I know, I know—this is perhaps something normal people have come to expect…but as residents it is not always so common). The “weekends off” thing is a bit interesting from a patient care perspective. Technically, there is always a PMH (Princess Marina Hospital) resident present at the hospital who can take care of emergencies. However, that resident is responsible for seeing a ridiculous number of patients (apparently the patient load has exceeded 100 at times), and as a result a number of critical patient issues (e.g., iv’s that fall out over the weekend, a change in mental status) may go neglected. So I’m curious as to how many of patients will still be alive upon my arrival on Monday morning…

I am, however, certainly happy about the “weekends off” policy, as it should allow me to do some exploring around Africa. This weekend a few of us opted to stay closer to Gabs to get to know the area a little better and generally take some much-needed R&R. I began the day by sleeping in (my first decent night since I’ve been here…looks like my clock has finally reset!). Around noon, one of the medical students (Vanae) & I decided to be adventuresome and take a cab out to the village of Mochudi, which is about 35 km north of Gabs. We took a fabulous hike up into these cool rock formations—the only drawback was that when we got to our destination, a local museum, we found that it was closed on weekends. This slight disappointment was offset, however, by multiple monkey sightings. Who doesn’t like monkeys, right? Other activities for the weekend included watching a local soccer game as well as attending a Zambian art exhibit at the Botswana “Alliance Francaise” building (don’t ask).