Tema Hospital Day 3

Today, I spent my last day at Tema General Hospital with Kenneth and Samuel of Step FaR. The day went much like yesterday where we spent the morning working side by side with the therapists and then gave them a brief inservice in the afternoon.

I saw interesting patients today, too! I was in the gym area today. I worked with Prince, one of the intern P.T. students. I sort of gravitated towards him since he was young and impressionable. He was a sponge and very eager to learn!! Some of the actual Physical Therapists seem to just throw their workload off on the students in the clinic or therapy technicians. That was a little discouraging. However, Prince was very anxious to apply his book knowledge to patients. He came up with a lot of good ideas, but needed guidance to make them safer or more appropriate for his patients. I kept thinking while I was working with him, he would become an excellent therapist if he just had a good clinical instructor. I'm realizing these therapists have good book knowledge but have never had good mentoring to apply the knowledge to treating patients. The Ghana PT school requires a year long internship before they graduate. In the US, it would be sufficient amount of time to become an entry level therapist; however, the practicing therapists themselves have never really applied their book smarts well and so they do not know how to mentor or train the students. Thus, I think they are in a vicious cycle. Hopefully, Kenneth and Sam's organization will take off and allow more continuing education and mentoring opportunities for Ghanaian therapists.

I'm so glad Village Volunteers, one of the organizations that helped me come to Ghana, had pre-volunteer packets. The information in them about not expecting too much has been very helpful in making me have realistic expectations for my trip!! It could be very easy to become discouraged. I know I can not change the system with this one trip, but I may help change one therapist (maybe Prince)! By changing that one therapist's mindset on how to appropriately treat patients, he may train a few more allowing a turn around in events.

After spending the day at the hospital, I returned to Pastor Allan and Patsy's home. They are the missionary couple that opened their home to me!! It's funny because I specifically chose Therapist without Borders Organization because I did not want to do missionary work, but I can't help but feel blessed to have met this wonderful couple! I'm not sure where I stand with religion at the moment. I have my own beliefs, but I have no desire to force my spiritual beliefs upon other people. It's amazing though how moved you can feel by spending time with a couple who's lives are so influenced by their faith! Whether you agree with missionary work or not, the help and happiness they provide to Ghanaians is amazing!!

I will go into a little more detail about Pastor Allan and Patsy. Allan owned a oil drilling company in Colorado. Patsy and Allan went on many mission trips prior to moving to Ghana. I guess about 17 years ago they decided to sell everything and come to Ghana and do missionary work. They were a very well off couple in the US. They had every material possession imaginable, but still felt like something was missing from their lives. They originally were just doing traditional missionary work trying to convert people; however, somewhere along the way they started working with "Joni and Friends," a faith based Christian organization that provides wheelchair and adaptive equipment to people in need around the world. Allan and Patsy have become a huge advocate for people with disabilities in Ghana along with being missionaries! Also, they help drill holes for water so people in Ghana can have clean water. The money they charge to drill helps maintain their faith missions and equipment acquisition. Allan and Patsy have some crazy stories of things they went through in their 17 years in Africa. They have become very ill with malaria, typhoid fever, parasitic infections! They had guns placed to their heads. That's why I admire their faith! If I went through all of that, I'd be out of Ghana in a heartbeat!!!

I'm learning the desire to volunteer does not end after one trip! I'm really excited to be working with Ken and Sam and meeting Allan and Patsy because I will have more opportunities to continue my volunteering in Ghana in a few years, hopefully!!!

Tomorrow, I am going with Sam to our next training site to set it up for next week. Our plan for next week is to run a week long continuing education course! I did not know I'd being doing public speaking on this trip. I hope they have a microphone since I have such a quiet voice. I'm going to be doing a lot of "winging it." If I would have known back in the US this was the plan, I would have prepared power point presentations and done more research. Oh well, this too will be an adventure!! I feel so powerful in a way. I have a chance to influence the entire P.T. profession in Ghana with the programs we are putting on over the next 2 weeks. GTV (Ghana Television) is coming to one of the conferences!!! Please send your positive thoughts, prayers, and support my way so Ken, Sam, and I can do a good job! About 10% of Ghanaians are disable so they really need quality physical therapy. I want to help with that!!!!

Love, Kari