Hit the ground running...

So i'm home from the O.C., and it was a really good time! Barbara and i hit up Universal Studios, Knott's Berry Farm, the Walk of Fame, and our personal highlight, Laguna Beach. Barbara has some childhood history there too, which made it all the better. Shopping was super fun, what with our good exchange rate, and shopping with Barbara is simply a blast, regardless of financial backing. Lots of good stories, how about this one for you:

What did Hayley and Barbara's tour of Hollywood get interuppted by?

a) Tom Cruise handing out pamphlets outside the temple of scientology

b) A Peace Protest under the Hollywood sign

or c) a Gay Pride Parade

If you guessed C, you're definitely right. Barbara and i saw these four buff, good looking guys walking down the sidewalk wearing white mini-skirts...and only white mini skirts. WOW.
Anywho, the week flew by, and before i knew it, i was home in soggy Calgary... (symbolically, the sun didn't shine the whole week Barbara and i were gone). The following morning, i reported to the ICU of the Foothills for my first orientation as their casual unit clerk. It's very different from the OR... there's 2 unit clerks at the desk from 7 am to 11pm ideally, to answer phones and call bells. And a printer spits out copious amounts of paperwork, which are actually doctors orders and have to be delivered to each of the 22 bedsides. But it's cool, because each bedside has a computer console. The care is 1:1, and these nurses are intense. i really respect them already, they're super nice, and handle stress REALLY well. But all the patients are typically really sick, if they start getting better, they're shipped out to a different unit, like one i'd work on as a student nurse. I see the saddest, most scared families in the hospital.

But anyways, by noon on my first day i was answering the phones, where 75% of the battle is remembering to answer "ICU, Hayley speaking" and not "Operating Room, this is Hayley"... its intense, lemme tell you. But i really like it so far, "thrilling" is how i describe it to people who ask. I'll still be in the O.R., i'm basically on call to either unit, but as booked shifts go, i'm working very close to full time, which is exciting! I'll be working some night shifts too, most of my shifts are 12 hours, 7-7... yeah, h-core.

Maintaining the Professional Facade, OH yeah!

I'm in the O.C.!!

That's right, Barbara and i are in the O.C. - Orange County California! No sight of the typical O.C. crowd, but we've onl been here fore 18 hours. We're staying with my mom's childhood best friend and her sisters and her son, and they're extremely hospitable...and short! LOL, loves the little Filipinos. Barbara and i were famished, so we had our first "in and out" burger on the way home. WOW, so cheap and good and greasy! $1.50 for a burger with all the fixings? we felt gross after though, SO greasy, and i kept thinking about medical sociology and inequality and poor nutrition in America, it was awesome. There's an incredible amount of fast food here, very sketchy. anyways, we visited Tita Brenda near San Diego, after spending a VERY long time in traffic, it's ridiculous, the freeways and overpasses and GRIDLOCK. Barbara and i both noticed the large number of SUV's here, its like everyone drives one! and there's typically just one person per car...makes me sad. We had a wonderful Filipino feast with Tita Brenda, Tita Jessie and Tita Chona, including Leche flan!! And as soon as we got to Tita Chona's house, they showed us where all the food was...of course! Fun plans for today, we'll update you further, but if you have a souvenier request, post a comment!
Love you all,
Hayley

Upsetting Anniversary

You know, 25 years is not a long time. This is contrary to the opinion most people would expect from a 19 year old, but it's really not a long time at all. Especially in the grand scheme of things. So how is it, that in only 25 years, 25 million people have died from AIDS?

Today, the media buzz is the fact it has been 25 years to the day since the first cases of HIV were discovered in Los Angeles. 25 000 000 people, gone. And what of the 40 million people worldwide, virtually the "walking dead", who will die without treatment? I mean, of course there's no cure yet, but allow me to reiterate, anti-retroviral (ARV) medications can slow down the progression of the disease to a significant degree. In the first world, you can live with AIDS for a long time. Granted, life is not peachy; there's still a lot of stigma attached to it, reminiscint of leperosy, except it's often physically invisible.

AIDS amplifies inequality; in affluent nations people are more likely to have access to the ARV's, as well as better diets and hygiene. This lengthens their life expectancies. However, in impoverished nations, the disease progresses at an alarmingly fast rate...the strain in Africa goes from HIV to AIDS much faster than the North American strain... people can die 2-3 years after being infected with HIV. Combine that with the poverty, inadequate nutrition, hygiene, and underfunded health care system of many regions of Africa, and you've got a deadly recipe for a pandemic. And far from being a gay-male disease, the infection rates have skyrocketed for African women - now 70% of infected African's are women, because biologically, females contract AIDS more readily than men.

Yet again, i publish an entry angry.

Two sightings! And it's only 10 am...

I love work. It has its perks.
Dr. Frank has dropped by my desk twice today! And it's only 10 am! I feel weird posting this, considering the doom and gloom of my previous posts. But still. He was flirty again today, i'm pretty sure i turned bright red. Mother of pearl...oh happy day!!! He's so funny too! Hopefully he'll stop by for a little longer next time...he just returned our fiberoptic laryngoscope... if he needs it again, I alone hold the key! (*tee hee*)
Who knows? Maybe he'll want to come to Africa with me!
What are you doing on Saturday, Dr. Frank?

Look Out...Hayley's Angry

I just need to process this right now...i can't concentrate on my schooling or studying, because this is making me SO MAD. It's been...just over a week since this has been just forced on me, like a tidal wave, and i have to accept that, right now, there is not a lot i can do about it. The injustice is just eating away at me, and i don't know what to do. I know what i want to do, but right now, it's not feasable.

But i suppose i should enlighten you as to why i am so incredibly angry.

A week ago, i watched a lecture about AIDS in Africa. Like i said in a previous post, i'm not used to being motivated into missionary-like action through a lecture. But this is different, and i can't get it off my mind. The more i learn, the more angry i get. My world has gotten A LOT bigger. I work in the Calgary Health Region. I'm learning about how to give good nursing care. I can look forwards to being "in-demand" for the rest of my career, because Canada's population is aging, and nursing staff is "badly needed". Normally, that's not where quotations marks should go. But here's what helped get me riled up...

• 100 new nurses graduated in Swaziland in 2003. Forty-one went abroad.
• ONE in three public-health jobs goes unfilled in South Africa.
• SIX doctors care for every 100,000 people in Uganda.
• 200+doctors care for every 100,000 people in Canada.
• ¾ of all doctors in both Zimbabwe and Ghana leave the country.

there is SUCH inequality, and it's making me sick! There is so much need for medical professionals, but our affluent nations continue to tempt them over to the Western world with promises of large salaries and better quality of life. And i'm caught here, because i do think that everyone deserves a chance to live with a high standard of living. A doctor practicing in Uganda gets $65 a month... he could be making an astronomical amount more practicing in a different country. But the need is so much more intense in Africa, and their shortages so much worse than ours.

I'm so proud to be Canadian, but my national pride took a hit today, when i found out that in the late 1990's Alberta paid for 40 doctors, and their families to be flown from South Africa to work here. I don't know how to feel...they're given a chance to live well, in a foreign country, but what happens back home? I can't feel good about taking the doctors they need so badly to treat our aging population...i don't mean to sound callous, but we're going to die, you can't stop it. But there IS something they could do in Africa, with the proper resources and financial backing.

There's probably a nursing school in Nigeria, where they're learning the same things as me; bed-making, vital signs, catheters, medication administration... and it's great! But then they will leave, not because they want to, but because they cannot make a living there, there is not enough money despite the intense need for nurses. It's as if Africa is a boat in a storm, where the storm is the AIDS pandemic. How can Africa as a continent respond to the AIDS pandemic if us, the affluent nations, continue to drill holes in the boat to drain them of their Health Care work force?!?!

"Take Lesotho, a tiny country where one in three adults has HIV. The government is poised to move ahead with a national AIDS treatment program that would alleviate about half the congestion in its medical wards, which would free up staff and mitigate one of the dire conditions cited as a constant drain on morale. But the country is seriously hampered because it doesn't have the necessary doctors and nurses."

I could accept it when i thought Canada was doing more than its share. Canada pledged $150 million US over 4 years... The States...who, might i add, make up one quarter of the global GDP, pledged only $500 million over the next two years. That makes me sad. But i can't accept using their doctors and nurses to boost our health care system if it means the continuing decimation of their own health care systems. Yes, Canada needs nurses. But its because of our own poor planning that we don't have enough nurses...we knew the baby-boomers were going to get old and need care, but nothing was done about it. Now we have NO right to import aid from countries we should be giving aid to.

ok, getting too worked up... thanks for reading

Short but sweet

Found on Relevant Magazine . com, enforced by medical sociology class, here for your thoughts.

"When a culture is run by people who only seem to be looking out for themselves, offering neither grace nor justice to those in their charge, those who do not hold power end up feeling isolated, disconnected and generally disenfranchised with the values the culture is selling. Thus, the disenfranchised majority is left only really trusting one thing: Themselves, and whatever pleasures they can use to self-medicate."

And speaking of Medication...

Here's an amazing article...i watched a lecture by Stephanie Nolen, she helped light this fire under me... take a gander, she spoke for 45 minutes about AIDS in Africa.

http://www.stephanienolen.com/dispatches/lewis.htm

Here's a taste: Three-quarters of the people in the world with HIV/AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa, and 90 per cent of those do not know they have it. Of the 30 million infected people on the continent, only 30,000 have access to the anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) that have made it a manageable, chronic condition in the first world.
The typical African is dead three years from the time he or she learns they have the disease. Some 9,600 people die of AIDS-related diseases in Africa every single day. That's the city of Nelson, B.C., dead each day.