Day 2
We all woke up this morning well before our alarms (thanks jetlag) and ready to start the day. After another delicious breakfast prepared by Rupa, Erin, Jay, and Linda headed off to BM Birla teaching hospital. Shruthi and David had an exam to take, so we decided to swap Shruthi for Linda this morning.
...Anyways, back to our visit at BM Birla. Once again, we arrived to a hospital only to fall victim to good old Indian Standard Time (IST). Although the doctor we were meeting was not ready yet, the doctors and nurses let us hang out by the desk in the CCU. Dr. De, who we actually got in contact with through Dr. Dutta (the doctor at SSKM we met the day before), was the first new doctor we had met on this trip. Before we had a chance to begin explaining what our project was, she told us to come with her to see the one patient they had in the CCU with a temporary pacemaker.
In the patients room Dr. De quizzed us about pacemakers and heart conditions as if we were medical students. She started asking us questions that would be asked to med students about what type of complications would we expect if a patient was presenting in a certain way. Luckily we had Linda with us because she was able to answer everything and make us look like we really knew what we were doing. After Dr. De's inquisition, she showed us the controls on the temporary pacemakers. To our suprise, she began to change the controls to show us what happens when you adjust them. Although we all appreciated being able to see that, we all seemed a little taken a back that she was doing this on a real patient.
The real value in talking to Dr. De was understanding how a hospital can do things right. This hospital is definitely not the kind of place where our solution is going to be implemented, but Dr. De and the other staff around clued us in on how they are so good at what they do, where other areas are suffering, and where some of the best places for innovation are. After talking with her about some of the periphery hospitals, she put us in contact with a resident she has who works at a nursing home in a periphery setting and he set us up to meet with him there the next day.
After BM Birla we all had a little time before our next meeting. We were going to head back to the guest house to wait, but Dr. Saha suggested that we come into the JSV office (his company) because there was some strikes and political demonstrations that were supposed to be going on in the city. Apparently there was a big scandal among the ruling party in Kolkata that led to the arrest of some extremely high government officials the day before, so people were protesting. We never really got the full story of what happened, but we pieced together the information we got the best we could.
Once it was safe for us to go on the roads again, Dhananjay, Erin, and Shruthi headed back to Medica to meet with Dr. Banerjee, a cardiologist they had met with for a long time during their last visit. Dr. Banerjee was busy again and was constantly being interrupted by patients, nurses, doctors, and other hospital staff for questions, but he managed to keep listening to us and our concepts. Dr. Banerjee seemed extremely interested in the concepts we generated and even began to share is own thoughts on innovation. Sadly, Dr. Banerjee only had a breif amount of time to discuss our concepts today, so he made sure that we scheduled a longer time on Monday. He also promised to introduce us to some other experts he thought could give us their own opinions on our solution concepts and projects.
We returned back to the guest house around 5:30 and were waiting for plans for Dr. Saha for the evening. However, before we even made it to any of these plans, the jetlag struck again and everyone but Erin fell victim to a nice long nap. I think we all are almost all caught up on sleep, but just to make sure, we are all going to try and go to sleep early again.
We all woke up this morning well before our alarms (thanks jetlag) and ready to start the day. After another delicious breakfast prepared by Rupa, Erin, Jay, and Linda headed off to BM Birla teaching hospital. Shruthi and David had an exam to take, so we decided to swap Shruthi for Linda this morning.
Government vs. Private Hospitals
BM Birla is one of the top cardiac hospitals and research centers in all of India. It has a cardiac care unit (CCU) with 53 beds and was probably one of the cleanest CCU's we have come across so far in India. Compared to SSKM, the government hospital we were at yesterday, BM Birla could be a palace. It is really interesting how the government here in India funds all of these public hospitals, but does nothing to keep them updated or clean. The floors are dirty, everything is rusty, and it looks as though the hospital has been there for 50 years (even if it may not have been). When walking through one of these government hospitals it is almost impossible to find even a simple device, tool, or monitor that we would see at a hospital in the US. Private hospitals, on the otherhand, tend to be extremely well kept and clean. Although they might not have all the bells and whistles that US hospitals have, they generally have a lot of the same types of equipment and monitors which are mostly up-to-date. I wish we had pictures to show the inside of BM Birla, but unfortunately we did not take. However, Shruthi took a number of pictures inside SSKM yesterday, so hopefully we will be able to show some of these to at least give you an idea of the kinds of conditions we are talking about.
...Anyways, back to our visit at BM Birla. Once again, we arrived to a hospital only to fall victim to good old Indian Standard Time (IST). Although the doctor we were meeting was not ready yet, the doctors and nurses let us hang out by the desk in the CCU. Dr. De, who we actually got in contact with through Dr. Dutta (the doctor at SSKM we met the day before), was the first new doctor we had met on this trip. Before we had a chance to begin explaining what our project was, she told us to come with her to see the one patient they had in the CCU with a temporary pacemaker.
In the patients room Dr. De quizzed us about pacemakers and heart conditions as if we were medical students. She started asking us questions that would be asked to med students about what type of complications would we expect if a patient was presenting in a certain way. Luckily we had Linda with us because she was able to answer everything and make us look like we really knew what we were doing. After Dr. De's inquisition, she showed us the controls on the temporary pacemakers. To our suprise, she began to change the controls to show us what happens when you adjust them. Although we all appreciated being able to see that, we all seemed a little taken a back that she was doing this on a real patient.
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| Private ambulance at BM Birla and the closes one to a US ambulance we have seen |
After BM Birla we all had a little time before our next meeting. We were going to head back to the guest house to wait, but Dr. Saha suggested that we come into the JSV office (his company) because there was some strikes and political demonstrations that were supposed to be going on in the city. Apparently there was a big scandal among the ruling party in Kolkata that led to the arrest of some extremely high government officials the day before, so people were protesting. We never really got the full story of what happened, but we pieced together the information we got the best we could.
Once it was safe for us to go on the roads again, Dhananjay, Erin, and Shruthi headed back to Medica to meet with Dr. Banerjee, a cardiologist they had met with for a long time during their last visit. Dr. Banerjee was busy again and was constantly being interrupted by patients, nurses, doctors, and other hospital staff for questions, but he managed to keep listening to us and our concepts. Dr. Banerjee seemed extremely interested in the concepts we generated and even began to share is own thoughts on innovation. Sadly, Dr. Banerjee only had a breif amount of time to discuss our concepts today, so he made sure that we scheduled a longer time on Monday. He also promised to introduce us to some other experts he thought could give us their own opinions on our solution concepts and projects.
We returned back to the guest house around 5:30 and were waiting for plans for Dr. Saha for the evening. However, before we even made it to any of these plans, the jetlag struck again and everyone but Erin fell victim to a nice long nap. I think we all are almost all caught up on sleep, but just to make sure, we are all going to try and go to sleep early again.
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