By dpmitchel
Sanibona from South Africa!
As our program is nearing the beginning of our ISP period, we are ending the classroom academics and preparing to go out into our various research endeavors. We finished our Zulu course, have heard many lectures on community health and policy, and have completed 3 homestays. We spent a week travelling to two rural homestays, Impendle and UMthwalume, which were wonderful experiences to help us gain perspective on health issues from a more rural point of view. We finished our main 5-week homestay in Cato Manor, and it was sad to say goodbye to our families!
Currently, all of us are currently busy trying to make last-minute changes to our research projects. Although I was investigating the topic of emergency care in South Africa, I started toying with the idea of doing a hospital shadowing for my ISP. We went on an excursion to Chatsworth, a predominantly Indian township near Durban, and visited a hospital there, which piqued my interest. What cemented my decision was a recent visit to St. Mary’s hospital, a Catholic non-profit District Hospital that is both privately and publicly funded.
When we visited, we had the chance to see their maternity ward, antenatal clinic, and labor and delivery ward, and that reminded me just how much I loved my original topic of research! I originally wanted to compare the rates of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in public versus private clinics. After spending time in South Africa, I know that would be near impossible to investigate in the small 3-week research window we are given, but I think I have found a way to adapt my original topic.
We (as undergraduates) are not allowed to conduct research in a hospital setting in South Africa. So instead of doing research, I will be completing a Learnership, which will is purely observational and non-publishable. For my Learnership, I’ll be observing prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) protocols at various stages in pregnancy at St. Mary’s Hospital. Hopefully I’ll get to shadow in the antenatal clinic, the maternity in-patient ward, the nursery in-patient ward, and the midwifery and obstetrics unit. This way, I can get a complete understanding of the PMTCT process from counseling newly pregnant women to testing newborns for HIV. What makes this topic so relevant to the community is that HIV is a potent reality for a sizeable portion of KwaZulu-Natal, the province we are studying in.
I’m all set up to start November 1st, and I can’t wait to start shadowing!