The inimitable Jeffrey Collins arrived in Lima late on Monday night. I stayed up watching this show Atlanta and reading Guns, Germs, and Steel in Spanish until he got to the apartment around 1. We were tired but also jazzed up that we had both made it. We were giddy to officially be starting our year out fellowship together, so we didn’t fall asleep for a good while. I proudly showed off my shallow knowledge of the northern Lima transport system, casually hopping onto the T bus El Rápido (that runs by our place and takes us all the way down to the Partners in Health office in Comas district) and mapped out for Jeff the major roads in the area. He got settled in at the office, met some of the staff and the other volunteers, and worked on a long ‘ethics in research with human subjets’ training that I had completed last week. Meanwhile, I chipped away at translating a couple user manuals for a pillbox device that will be used in a TB prevention project, while also browsing a couple websites for apartment rentals closer to where Jeff and I will be working the majority of this year (more to come on that). On Thursday I gave a presentation to about 15 people (field workers, nurses, pharmacists) on this pillbox device - what it is, how to use it, navigating the confusing computer app and website, etc... I was pretty nervous at first, but felt great afterwards because I felt like I had been at least moderately useful, and I was stoked to be contributing to what seems like a really cool project! Partners in Health, called Socios en Salud here, has so many cool projects going on - TB, HIV, woman’s health, mental health, early intervention, you name it! It feels good to be a small part of an organization like this.
On Friday, we made the long journey from where we currently are staying in Carabayllo, to Hospital Hipólito Unanue, where the endTB2 clinical trial is headquartered in Peru, and where we will be spending most of our time this year. The trip took about 2 hours in a taxi (would’ve been nuts on buses, which we were considering), thus the need for us to relocate to a closer area to cut down our daily commute to the hospital. When we finally got there, our supervisor Dr. Mundaca came to meet as at the hospital entrance, and he took us to the small complex where trial participants with TB come for medical visits and office workers do their thing on the computer. He showed us around, introduced us to the staff (another project is based out of this small complex that’s testing a new, quick and easy diagnostic device for TB, which sounded really cool), taught us about the structure of the project endTB, let us sit in on a few medical visits, help out a bit with the physical exam, treated us to lunch, and gave us a little reading homework to brush up on TB (which we don’t learn all that much about in med school since it’s no longer very common in the US). Jeff and I were ecstatic to be learning about such interesting medicine, and for the privilege of becoming acquainted with a really important clinical trial. Briefly, the trial endTB is testing out a couple newly approved drugs for multi-drug resistant TB, seeing if it’s as effective or more than the current standard, and monitoring its safety profile. It’s actually a multi-national trial with sites around the world, and could very well change the way TB is treated. Super cool! And the new drugs don’t need to be taken as long (9 months as opposed to currently take 1.5-2 yrs to complete), so that could be big for patients.
On top of our excitement about being in Peru and learning about this important clinical trial, Jeff and I found that we had a lot in common with our supervisor, who is younger than we expected (fresh out of med school and the year of rural service required in Peru). We enjoyed nerding out all together about the rationale behind the different experimental drug regimens being tested in the trial (5 total different combinations that include the 2 new drugs plus some that are already used), but Dr. Mundaca (or Hansel, as we already have a pretty casual relationship), was visibly very happy to hear that we also play soccer and play music! Hansel happens to play the bass, so we have the makings of a socios en salud band ;)
After work on Friday, Hansel invited us out with another doctor colleague and some office workers. We gladly accepted, and subsequently made our way to a surprisingly modern mall where there was a club/restaurant. Not my or Jeff’s typical jam, but we were happy nonetheless to be with cool people :) We started out in the the karaoke salon, where Jeff and I belted out some Bob Marley (I’ll letcha guess which song!), much to the confusion and apparent dismay of our fellow patrons who were visibly relieved when the next recognizable Latino song came on :p but no matter! We cheersed our ‘Vikingo’-sized beers and proceeded to the dance floor. Where we performed the white guys trying to dance salsa routine. Our dancing partners kindly encouraged us on, and overall I think they appreciated the effort. But Jeff and I def got some work to do on that front :p
Later we went to our cheap hostel near the center of town so that we wouldn’t have to go all the way back to Carabayllo. Side note: it’s remarkable how quickly one’s olfactory senses adapt to a stinky 16-person shared hostel room. Then Jeff and I spent Saturday apartment-shopping and cruising around a potential neighborhood, imagining different versions of ourselves - will we be Cozy Jeff and Dre in a mini-depa (aptmt) in Surco? Fancy on the 33rd floor in Lince? In the end, it seems that Surco will be the place because it has lots of good, reasonable options. We’re visiting places this afternoon (after yoga in the park), and I’m excited to finalize our plans!
All for now - hasta luego :)
Thank you for the update Andre! Very cool!
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