" Getting to know you "

Friday evening with 2 and a half days to go. Packing is proceeding (or was until my Vancouver bahini Jana lured me over to watch game 5....).

I'm getting wonderful updates from Health Trek Team. All systems go from the sounds of things.

My friend and colleague Gabrielle brought up something on Thursday that I had not thought about. In the midst of me being nervous about meeting the demands of teaching in Nepal, Gabrielle asked me what I thought the students would be thinking about the arrival of Jason, Bibiana and I. She thought they would be excited but pretty nervous about meeting us. I had never thought about the fact that they might be a bit overwhelmed about three Canadian faculty showing up to teach them. I guess there will have to be a mutual "getting to know each other" time when we all arrive.

Check out http://healthtreknepal.blogspot.com/ to read the Health Trek Nepal blog!!!

I forgot to list Hasan (another UBC Med student) who is on the Health Trek Nepal team and in KTM now!

Med Student Volunteers

Something I wanted to mention was that for the first time since I have been involved with PAHS I will be sharing the experience with some truly remarkable University of British Columbia medical students. Mike, Kiley, Eda, Renee and Marion are already either in transit or on the ground in Kathmandu. They will be joined in a few weeks by a second group (Candace, Keira and Katelyn ** if I have left anyone out I'm sorry, I will introduce them once they arrive!).

This all started when I posted a description of PAHS on the Global Health Initiative UBC website (globalhealth.med.ubc.ca), a student led initiative at UBC.

Never underestimate the power of motivated med students! Next thing I knew meetings were scheduled (thanks Kiley!), fundraisers were planned, tutor guides were written (thanks Peytra, Mike and Renee!) and "Health Trek Nepal" was up and running. I think there may be a website for the student group and I will link to it when I get it.

Their main role will be to work with the PAHS medical students as basic science and English tutors throughout the summer. I'll keep you posted as I hear about the initiatives they develop.

my teaching tool kit

As I prepare to head to Kathmandu I have been reflecting on the differences between preparing to teach the UBC medical students and the PAHS students. They are both groups of smart students (that is a given) but there are some essential differences that will influence how and what I prepare. Number one the UBC med students all have at least one university degree already (often in the sciences) and they are on average 24+ years old. Many live on their own, some are married with young children.

The majority of PAHS students are starting medical school directly out of high school and are on average 17 or 18 years old. Particularly the students from rural areas will not be entering the program with a strong science background and English is not their first language. Most of the PAHS students will live at home with their parents.

For these reasons I will be balancing many things as I prepare to teach there. At UBC we teach the basic sciences couched within clinical cases. The pace of delivery is swift and builds exponentially as the weeks go by with each weeks topic building on the one before. At PAHS I will have to speak slower and more clearly so that will mean less content in any given session. There will be a need for more text on slides, which is something I rarely do in my lectures at UBC, where I use my slides for single images or graphs and talk the students through them. I will have to take into consideration that their scaffolding of science topics will be lighter than I am used to.

The PAHS students also come from a background (in high school) of a passive learning model (teacher speaks students write it down). My lecture style is much more interactive and relies on getting feedback from the students. I will have to work hard to establish a level of trust and safety that encourages their participation in discussions (in large and small groups).

So many things to think about as I "pack my teaching tool box" in advance of departing.

Oh and I get my Dukarol (anti diarrhea) booster tomorrow at the travel clinic....

CA didi

CA didi in The Netherlands

Two weeks to go before departure. David and I just spent our two week summer vacation cycling around The Netherlands. Given that the Nepali word for older sister is Didi and that I am a cardiovascular physiologist and LOVE teaching about ECG's I figured this picture would pretty much sum up what is ahead...