Dr. Livingston returns to Rwanda

Returning to my second home – Thursday, January 3, 2019 (from Patty)

In the wee hours tomorrow morning, I will begin the long journey back to Rwanda. This will be my last month-long visit as a CASIEF volunteer, although no doubt I will return for shorter visits and to help with specific programs.

The CASIEF-Rwanda program started in 2006, when there were only a few anesthesiologists in the the country. There are now 18 anesthesiologists and another 40 residents in training. With collaboration among partners in Rwanda, Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Scotland, great strides have been made in the past 12 years. This has included building an anesthesia training curriculum, establishing a multi-disciplinary simulation centre, training over 150 non-physician anesthetists (who provide most anesthesia care away from the urban centres) in SAFE Obstetric anesthesia, implementing a pain management program in Butare (the vast majority of this done by Dr Gaston, who has received international recognition for his accomplishments) and development of the Vital Anesthesia Simulation Training (VAST) Course (a 3-day course of essential anesthesia practices and non-technical skills designed for low-resource settings: https://vastcourse.org). This has come from the hard work of many dedicated individuals; it has been a pleasure to collaborate with all of them. Anesthesia in Rwanda has gone from being one of the least desired specialties to one where the best applicants are selected. The residents are well-qualified and committed to building an excellent anesthesia department. Former residents are now the leaders. I feel fortunate to have been involved in this work.

As usual, I have a big team coming and a long “to do” list. The team this year will be Dave (Dal global health fellow), Stephen (Dal anesthesia resident), Chris (Toronto anesthesia resident and the Lucky Iron Fish developer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Lf6glgKt3Q), Mary (pain specialist who will come for a week for a pain conference) and Jon (Dal regional anesthesia fellow who has made a few previous teaching visits to Rwanda). In addition to the Monday academic program and OR teaching, we will follow up on a research evaluation of the VAST Course and present at the first pain management conference to be held in Rwanda (organized by Gaston). After three weeks in Rwanda, we will travel to Addis Abba, Ethiopia, where CASIEF has started a new partnership for anesthesia resident education. In Ethiopia, we will run a VAST Facilitator Course, so that Ethiopian anesthesiologists can teach VAST in the future, and also teach a VAST Course. I’ve never been anywhere in Africa other than Rwanda (not counting Nairobi airport) so it will be interesting to visit Addis Abba.

I won’t be arriving in Kigali until late Saturday afternoon and it always takes a while to get up and running. Please look for the next blog post early next week. I am grateful to all of you who follow the blog and offer your support.

Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean – Sunday, January 6, 2019 (from Patty)

Chris was the only member of my team on the same flights to Rwanda, although we met just departing Toronto.

Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean a few hours into the flight, an overhead call was made seeking medical assistance. I have been on many flights where these calls are made and typically someone is a bit lightheaded or has had too much to drink. This one was different. Chris, two other health care providers and I (with help from the flight attendants) ran a full code for about 45 minutes, using as much as we found in the meager medical kit and the defibrillator. Unfortunately, the patient did not survive. It was a very sad situation and for many reasons the conditions for the resuscitation attempt were poor.

The travel this time had a connection in Addis Abba, Ethiopia. Since we will spend our final week there, this routing made sense. My previous flights over Africa have been nighttime so it was great to see the landscape from the air, as we flew in the afternoon from Addis Abba to Kigali (via Bujumbura, Burundi). Addis appears relatively flat with some surrounding hills. As we flew further south over the Great Rift Valley, the terrain changed from dry brown to lush green hills. We flew over Lake Victoria – it’s huge! Burundi and Rwanda have similar landscape but Burundi is sparsely populated and has few roads. Rwanda is one of the most densely populated countries in the world at 230 people per sq. km. It is quite apparent from the air.

We arrived in Kigali Saturday afternoon with enough time and energy to get phones working, change money and have dinner on a leafy terrace

Stephen arrived at 2:00 AM today (Sunday) minus luggage…

We’ve spent the day getting ready for academic day tomorrow. There are 11 new PGYs but we won’t meet them tomorrow. We will have a group of about 20 residents and have made some lively teaching plans. Good night, stay tuned.

Lively teaching day – Monday, January 7, 2019 (from Patty)

Academic day. The residents received questions to be answered from their preparation reading the week before. They sent their answers to us in advance so we can look for areas of misunderstanding. Each week, one Rwandan resident is assigned to be the resident teacher so I prepared the program for yesterday along with her. This helps the residents build teaching skills.

The topic for yesterday was obstetric anesthesia and analgesia. We had an action packed day. The morning session included a review of the homework questions with emphasis on clear, concise answers. Then we had a pro-con debate on establishing a labour epidural service in their hospital. This encouraged the residents to move beyond book knowledge and to think critically about their working environment. After that, we broke the residents into four teams to sequence cards of all the anesthesia actions required from receiving a call for an emergency general cesarean section to delivery of the neonate (thanks for the idea, Amélie). We regrouped to critique and refine the sequencing and then our teaching team ran a demonstration scenario of exactly these events. We let the residents know they would be be asked to role-play this same scenario in simulation in the afternoon. Our morning session ended with a lively game of Jeopardy (always popular) complete with prizes.

In the afternoon, we ran three stations and broke the residents into small groups to rotate through the stations. This included the cesarean general anesthesia induction from the morning, an epidural station and spinal station.

The day was utterly satisfying. One cannot imagine a keener group of learners. They remained enthusiastic and engaged throughout the day.

I have been coming to Rwanda for ten years. When I started there were 8 residents and no designated teaching space. We had to move from one borrowed teaching area to another, often to be displaced by another group. There were no materials for teaching and certainly there was no simulation. Teaching was with powerpoint lectures. The residents struggled with English, so communication was challenging. The curriculum was four page topic list with volunteers choosing a topic to teach from the list.

Today there are 40 residents who have a full academic day each week in a simulation centre with a classroom and sim lab. There is a one year curriculum for foundations (first year residents) and a two year curriculum for core (second and third year residents). Fourth year residents are involved in teaching. We are currently working on a one-year simulation-based curriculum for the first year residents to supplement the academic curriculum. Teaching methods have moved from passive to active. The residents communicate well in English.

The graduates of the CASIEF-Rwanda program are now in leadership positions (university head of anesthesia, hospital anesthesia heads, program director). Reflecting on the situation, I believe CASIEF has now accomplished its original goal of building a sustainable anesthesia training program in Rwanda. There is still a need for support, particularly for subspecialty areas (e.g., pain management, regional anesthesia) but the core elements are in place and anesthesia is thriving.

It has been a pleasure to share this experience with Dave, Chris and Stephen. They have promised to write a few posts as well.

Visit Dr. Livingston’s blog at < https://simcentreopening.blogspot.com/ > to see the original posts, including photos.