Urology Conference

The surgery workshop was organized in conjunction with the Kenyan Urology Society annual scientific conference, which capped the week’s activities. I had submitted a research abstract to Dr. Kanyi about a month ago, and he invited me to present it at the meeting! We arrived at the Panafric Hotel, one of the nicest hotels in Nairobi, at about 9:15 for the advertised 9:30 start. I know, not smart with Kenyan time, right? We figured that this would start on time. The conference hall where we were supposed to be holding our meeting was full of pulmonologists discussing asthma. Apparently the hotel had forgotten about our meeting, despite a large exhibit hall filled with pharma reps hawking medicines for BPH (benign prostatic hyperplasia). Oh well. We just relaxed on a large outdoor porch and enjoyed some chai, cookies, and the morning sun.



I spotted the business center, and quickly popped by flashdrive into the computer, as I wanted to a few words on my PowerPoint presentation. All of the files on my flashdrive looked a little weird, and I couldn’t open my presentation! Fortunately, I sent myself the presentation on email, so I just re-downloaded it and saved it on my flashdrive. That worked fine, but I later found out that the business center computer basically erased my flashdrive! All 6 gigabytes! Fortunately I had backed it up a few weeks ago so I didn’t lose too much, but it’s pretty annoying that the business center doesn’t have better virus control. Maybe global health should expand to include computer health care (terrible joke).

At about 11:00 am, we were finally invited to go into the conference hall to get started. Kenya has about 25 urologists, nearly all of whom were in attendance, along with some general surgeons, residents, and nurses. I was the only med student at the conference, we think because the fee for the conference was pretty high (2,000 KSH, or $25). The conference consisted primarily of 15 minute presentations on various research projects that people have been working on. I presented on the rate of urinary tract infection among pregnant women at the hospital where I’m working. It’s just preliminary data right now, but was happy to be able to present and get some ideas from urologists for the follow-up study that we’re about to start.

Amazingly, we made up time and actually finished up at the prescribed time! We then headed over to the Nairobi Club for dinner. This is an old social club built by the Brits over 100 years ago. Lawn bowling? Cricket? A spot of tea? All could be had here. We had the main dining hall for our function. As we were enjoying a beer before dinner, word trickled through that Raila Odinga, the Prime Minister of Kenya, was apparently in the house. I never saw him, but I’ll believe the rumor.



Dinner was good, and afterwards I went back the guesthouse to get some sleep before my early flight back to Mombasa on Saturday morning. All in all, the week was even better than I had expected. Aside from the ambiguity of what we were actually going to do upon arrival, it really couldn’t have gone better. I met a ton of urologists who invited me to visit them at their various hospitals around the country. After seeing the generalist model of care in Msambweni, it was interesting to be part of the more specialized delivery at the tertiary care hospitals in Kenya. Hopefully I’ll have more to report soon!

Currently we have a full house here. Four colleagues are here from the US, so we’re really busy trying to plan for our next (and last) few months here.