Indian Spelling Bee

Let me start this post by stating clearly that I like the Indian people, in general, and specifically those I’ve met. One of my good friends is from India and I’ve learned a lot from him. That said I was not prepared for the cultural onslaught that was our pre-operative clinic. It also speaks to the desperation of these people to receive services that they so badly need. Suffice it to say, today all about pressure.

The pre-operative clinic is preceded by months of preparations by the local Rotarians, who promote the arrival our team to provide surgeries to those in need who otherwise cannot afford it. When the team arrives to the clinic we are not surprised to find dozens of people already waiting in line – in the heat – patiently anticipating us and hoping that they will be helped. Indeed on the morning of the clinic, we arrived to people already lined up in the hallways waiting. I’ll never get used to this sight and the hope and desperation (in some cases) that it represents.

Having seen the location the day before and given instructions for the set-up to the hospital staff and Rotarians, we were expecting the rooms to be prepared. They were not so our team jumped into action grabbing tables and chairs and arranging them quickly so that we could get our equipment and materials in place to run an efficient clinic. Typically we expect upwards of 75 people at the clinic; we were not disappointed this time. Over the course of five hours, the team saw 84 potential patients – I started the charts (which I’ll explain a little better), Dave took their pictures, vital signs were checked, and then patients were moved through a series of exams by surgeons, anesthesiologists, Amie, our pediatrician, and Nam, our dentist. For those of you who, like me, are challenged by numbers that’s about 17 patients per hour – a record in my book.

Now the way this works is that I’m the first stop for the patients and the people they come with – often with one or more people. It’s my job to represent the mission with a friendly face (many of them arrive nervous, excited, hopeful – a full range of emotions) and to collect their basic information so I can set-up a medical chart. During last year’s mission, I devised a simple form that could be used to collect that information while they were in line; the Rotarians did this and it worked great last year. This year had the same potential with so many people cued up. But there was another element in play that I could not have predicted.

I wasn’t quite ready to have patients brought to my desk yet, but the pressure was high as people kept coming and asking me if I was ready so I let it happen. My bad. With the information collection forms in hand, I started transcribing the information to my charts (including polysyllabic names that I wouldn’t dare to try and pronounce) only to discover that more times than not the spelling was wrong – and what ensued was a disaster. Each time I started to write something incorrectly, I had the translator, the patient AND whatever family members and friends standing around my desk all loudly re-spelling it for me. And that’s not the worst of it. They were not all spelling the words the same way amongst themselves and for most I couldn’t understand the difference between a “b” or “v” and many other letters. In fact most of the alphabet was very different. I tried to choose a person to listen to, smile firmly planted on my face, only to have someone else start talking louder when he/she realized that I wasn’t listening to him/her. It was utter chaos. And with every arriving patient, the translator changed providing me yet another element of confusion. About 20 minutes into the clinic, I had enough, but with 70+ patients to go I steadied myself and kept slogging through it many times frustrated to tears by the confusion, raised voices, and mismatching information.

The pressure increased as team members would wander in and let me know they weren’t busy enough. And as  I always strive to perform so that no one is burdened or hindered by my work, I kept pushing through. Although I didn’t need to really push myself. Even as I was still entering information from one patient into the computer, the Rotarians would invite the patient out of the chair and bring the next patient and entourage to my desk.

Finally, about halfway through the clinic the Rotary president seemed to understand the issue and stepped in to redirect his team and took over the translation and traffic responsibility for the remainder of the clinic. His English was very good and his more commanding presence served to more or less silence the masses trying to remedy what they believed was my spelling problem. The saving grace of the day was Dave, our photographer, who was witness to all of this and consistently offered his sympathies and encouraged me to keep smiling as we finished the day in record time.

If this post sounds miserable, I won't sugar coat it, it was. I believe that this was my low point. on this mission. Back at the hotel, I sat on my non-posturepedic comfort bed and cried for five minutes. With that therapy moment behind me it was time to enjoy dinner with the team and recount the day. The schedule was set for the first day and it would be a challenging day with 13 surgeries—an aggressive start, but many happy smiles to look forward to in the days ahead.

It’s uphill from here.

This is what it looked like (actually, this isn't quite the mob that I had most of the day). I really did try my best.