It is officially my fifth day here, and I can honestly say it has been five of the most interesting days of my life. We arrived in Dehradun on Sunday from New Delhi via the train. It was a 6.5 hour train ride, but we were served tea, breakfast, and gorgeous views of the countryside so the long ride wasn’t so bad. When we finally got here our local program coordinator took us to meet our host family that we’ll be staying with for 2 weeks while we’re here in Dehradun. They are so kind and welcoming, we got so unbelievably lucky.

The first thing we did once we got settled in was go to a Buddhist monastery, fittingly called Mindrolling Monastery, that was gorgeous and something I had never seen before. I hope you saw some of Lindsey’s pictures from our trip there…we enjoyed taking those pics!

Monday we started our rotation for the week (as every week is a different rotation schedule). For this week, each day is split up between Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics. Both of our preceptors are so invested in teaching students and providing all sorts of helpful advice in practicing medicine. Specifically, our EM preceptor told us that he lives by a principle with the acronym “ABC: Availability, Behavior, and Competence.” He states that he lives by these principles to help shape his role and impact as a physician. The physician who manages the hospital originally started out with a one room facility that has now grown into highly staffed divisions that treat patients for high acuity, general inpatient, along with 2 rooms serving as an ED. Many of the patients present with conditions similar to what we have seen in the US, such as uncontrolled diabetes and hypertension, acute on chronic COPD, pneumonia, pancreatitis, and myocardial infarctions. At the Pediatric clinic, our preceptor teaches us and the patients on topics regarding each diagnosis and their management. These docs are providing great care and I’m honored to be learning from them

Every morning, me and Lindsey walk to catch a Vikram, or what is otherwise known as one of India’s public transportation systems, to our rotation. Vikrams are tiny cars that can hold 6-8 people that drive a certain route for the day. If your stop is on that route, then you hop on the Vikram and they will take you there along with anyone else who is on that route. It’s so different from anything I’ve ever done, but that’s what makes it so refreshing and exciting. Our walks on the street to the Vikram are shared with quite a few cows, dogs, motorcyclists, and fellow walkers. We never know what we’ll see on our walks to rotation and that’s most certainly the fun of it.

From what I have seen, India is all about sunshine, showing kindness to others, and lots of horn-honking (:
-Meredith