Friday was set to be another busy day for the team. After waking up and eating an an early breakfast, we walked across the street to CARE hospital for our first meeting of the day.
When we got to CARE, we learned that the cardiac thoracic surgeon we were supposed to be meeting with had ended up having to come in to the hospital overnight to deal with an emergency and thus, had needed to rearrange his schedule and was running a bit behind. We sat outside in the waiting room while he saw the last couple patients he needed to and then made our way into his office.
Dr. Nemanth was a contact that Dr. Krishnamohan had set us up with. He was another very down to earth doctor and gave some really valuable insight into cardiac surgery and temporary pacing. He also was a very innovative thinker and walked us through some potential avenues for devices and procedures that he was familiar with and that we might find helpful. Unfortunately because Dr. Nemanth had needed to switch around his schedule, he had a procedure directly following our meeting and we were only able to talk to him for an hour. However, before we left he told us we were welcome to come watch a procedure and he would help answer more questions (something we are hoping to do early next week).
After our meeting at CARE we were supposed to head over to Osmania government hospital to meet with another cardiologist. Before we left, Naresh gave the doctor a call and learned that he was going to be unable to meet us today. Instead, Naresh suggested we try to go to another hospital, NIMS, and try our luck there. He was unable to get a hold of a doctor right away, but since we didnt have another meeting scheduled until 1, he told us he would keep trying.
Since the team had some time, they decided to go by a nearby street market bazaar, Ghandi Bazaar, to do a little street side shopping. While at the market, Naresh called again to let us know that the two meetings we had at another facility, CARE Nompally, had been cancelled again because the doctors were busy. We decided to go grab lunch and then head back to the hotel to wait for our afternoon meeting which was still on.
At 3:15, we headed to the CARE outpatient center (OPD). The CARE OPD center is separate from the main inpatient center, but is just about a 5 minute drive from the hotel. At the OPD, we met with Dr. Sridevi, another cardiologist on our graduate committe. Dr. Sridevi was excited to see us and talk in person and was again very helpful with filtering through some of our ideas. She had some hesitations with some of the new ideas we found, because of the difference between Kolkata and Hyderabad, but was very open to sharing some new ideas and how they could and would be adopted. Before we left, Dr. Sridevi mentioned she would be coming to the US in May, 2015 and was hoping to have a chance to visit us at Johns Hopkins, which we were obviously excited to hear about.
We left the meeting feeling good about the direction of our project and decided to take some time in the evening to do some brainstorming and readjusting to our plans to maximize the rest of the trip. Naresh had mentioned that one of the meetings from earlier was going to be rescheduled for the later evening, but this too ended up being cancelled. Nevertheless, we got some really good work done and are prepared to get the most of our last few days in Hyderabad.
During our time here in India it has seemed like a lot of our appointments have been moved around or cancelled. Part of this may be because we are in India were timing and punctuality are not always the most important, but I also think it has a lot to do with these doctors being extremely busy. I imagine that if we were to try and schedule back to back meetings with doctors in America for a week straight, a good number of them would also get cancelled or switched around too do to the uncertainty of scheduling in the medical world. We are doing our best to make use of all the time we have and filling in these missed meetings with additional research, brainstorming, and planning to keep the team on track.
Since we had all had a pretty big lunch earlier in the day, we just stayed in the hotel and ordered a few snacks for dinner before heading out to explore a little more of the city later that night.
When we got to CARE, we learned that the cardiac thoracic surgeon we were supposed to be meeting with had ended up having to come in to the hospital overnight to deal with an emergency and thus, had needed to rearrange his schedule and was running a bit behind. We sat outside in the waiting room while he saw the last couple patients he needed to and then made our way into his office.
Dr. Nemanth was a contact that Dr. Krishnamohan had set us up with. He was another very down to earth doctor and gave some really valuable insight into cardiac surgery and temporary pacing. He also was a very innovative thinker and walked us through some potential avenues for devices and procedures that he was familiar with and that we might find helpful. Unfortunately because Dr. Nemanth had needed to switch around his schedule, he had a procedure directly following our meeting and we were only able to talk to him for an hour. However, before we left he told us we were welcome to come watch a procedure and he would help answer more questions (something we are hoping to do early next week).
After our meeting at CARE we were supposed to head over to Osmania government hospital to meet with another cardiologist. Before we left, Naresh gave the doctor a call and learned that he was going to be unable to meet us today. Instead, Naresh suggested we try to go to another hospital, NIMS, and try our luck there. He was unable to get a hold of a doctor right away, but since we didnt have another meeting scheduled until 1, he told us he would keep trying.
Since the team had some time, they decided to go by a nearby street market bazaar, Ghandi Bazaar, to do a little street side shopping. While at the market, Naresh called again to let us know that the two meetings we had at another facility, CARE Nompally, had been cancelled again because the doctors were busy. We decided to go grab lunch and then head back to the hotel to wait for our afternoon meeting which was still on.
At 3:15, we headed to the CARE outpatient center (OPD). The CARE OPD center is separate from the main inpatient center, but is just about a 5 minute drive from the hotel. At the OPD, we met with Dr. Sridevi, another cardiologist on our graduate committe. Dr. Sridevi was excited to see us and talk in person and was again very helpful with filtering through some of our ideas. She had some hesitations with some of the new ideas we found, because of the difference between Kolkata and Hyderabad, but was very open to sharing some new ideas and how they could and would be adopted. Before we left, Dr. Sridevi mentioned she would be coming to the US in May, 2015 and was hoping to have a chance to visit us at Johns Hopkins, which we were obviously excited to hear about.
We left the meeting feeling good about the direction of our project and decided to take some time in the evening to do some brainstorming and readjusting to our plans to maximize the rest of the trip. Naresh had mentioned that one of the meetings from earlier was going to be rescheduled for the later evening, but this too ended up being cancelled. Nevertheless, we got some really good work done and are prepared to get the most of our last few days in Hyderabad.
During our time here in India it has seemed like a lot of our appointments have been moved around or cancelled. Part of this may be because we are in India were timing and punctuality are not always the most important, but I also think it has a lot to do with these doctors being extremely busy. I imagine that if we were to try and schedule back to back meetings with doctors in America for a week straight, a good number of them would also get cancelled or switched around too do to the uncertainty of scheduling in the medical world. We are doing our best to make use of all the time we have and filling in these missed meetings with additional research, brainstorming, and planning to keep the team on track.
Since we had all had a pretty big lunch earlier in the day, we just stayed in the hotel and ordered a few snacks for dinner before heading out to explore a little more of the city later that night.
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