About Me

This blog is about Andrew Mockridge, a 5th Year Medical student and his elective in Gulu Uganda. During the 2 months, he shall be working in the Gulu Regional Referral hospital and the surrounding district undertaking research and clinical work in the hospital. The people of Gulu have suffered immensely in a recent civil war with the LRA in Uganda. Many lives have been lost and the rebuilding of infrastructure, education and communities still remains to be developed to this present day. TB and HIV are very prevalent in the region and this is where the research will be centred. I will be collecting patient details from local health offices and visiting the rural districts to identify suitable patients and arrange them to be seen by the research team in May/June time. The other part of my work will be spending time looking after poorly patients in Gulu Regional Referral hospital. I'm sure I will learn alot from a healthcare system so different to our own!

Monday, 19 March 2012

4 days until the adventure begins

So the time is counting down! whilst trying to work on the last week of my 4 week block in Respiratory medicine in Wythenshawe and holding the FY1 bleep, I am trying to balance packing all my things for staying in Gulu for the next 8 weeks and obtain medical supplies for the region. Qatar Airways have kindly given me an extra allowance to take all of these supplies (believe me, the table is full with them) and hopefully they should benefit a lucky few.


It seems slightly surreal that I will be travelling so far away and for so long in a place I have never been before. This is quite daunting for me, who has lived life fairly comfortably for the past 5 years and is pretty stuck in his own ways eg. allotment, car, nice house....


I'm sure I will get a lot out of Gulu both in terms of clinical and life experience. I met the guy who's PhD I am helping with in Gulu and have lots of things to keep me busy when I get there. There is also the African Medical Students conference which I am helping out with on my first week, with possibly some promises of a Safari at the end!


I have also been promised that I can set up having some Chickens at the Hospital link accommodation, so hopefully things may seem a little more like home than I thought, as long as they don't roam the wards for food like this lady below!

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1 comment:

  1. rhetorician21 March 2012 at 16:01

    good luck Andrew; I'm sure lots of people will be interested in the chickens too, and learning how to keep them and look after them. Stay in touch - have this bookmarked so that the girls (well the bigger one, anyway) can see your pics etc

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