From Paneer Samosas to Spring Roll Dosas !!

21-Aug-15, Patna, last office day

NO to Dhanapur, NO to Arrah, YES to PMCH:

We started the day by visiting jhpiego office to plan our visit to a clinical site attached to IGIMS in Dhanapur. The Jhpiego team spent some time talking to officials in Dhanapur and later decided to take us to a different clinical site at Arrah an hour travel from Patna. However, as the roads to that clinical site was blocked due to some technical reasons and we returned back to Patna to visit the PMCH OB/Gyn facilities.

PMCH: Interaction with clinical staff

As per this decision, we went to PMCH. We talked to Dr.Amrita Sharan from OB/Gyn department. We discussed various aspects of nursing education, the gaps in the current system and how it could be improved. Along with her, there were many PG students seated with her and giving their opinion on PSE education in Patna and in general.

Later, we met the Matron of OB/Gyn in PMCH to understand the various aspects of PSE education and how it works in PMCH. We came to know from her that how difficult it is for nursing students to get chance to practice in clinical site in a medical college and hospital as the PG and resident students want to practice on first priority.

Matron Meena kumari was kind enough to buy hot paneer samosas for all of us which we really cherished and few of us regretted fr saying NO to it when offered :-D

Pushkar comes from LGH, Pune:

On that evening, we met Pushkar from LGH, Pune for the first time. We had only talked to him over telephone when we were in Norway. It was exciting to meet Pushkar in person. We had a friendly chat over coffee in a CCD close to our hotel. We all later went on a walk to the Gandhi maidhan to see things near our hotel for the evening before dinner. After strolling through the Gandhi maidhan, we headed to a restaurant called "Dosa palace" nearby for dinner. It was a fun place as there was a plenty of dosa variety and ordered new types of dosas including spring roll Dosa :-) 

Sooraj Dooba Hain

After returning from Begusarai, we were glad to finally spend a whole five days in Patna (throughout our entire trip, I think that was the longest time we've been in one place). Our day started as it typically would, with us heading to the Jhpiego office in the morning to discuss what we had seen with Dr. Pallavi. I still don't understand how we could meet every day and have almost 2 hours worth of questions each time. But it is truly a testament to Dr. Pallavi's patience and knowledge when she sat with us to clarify all our doubts and provide her perspective.

And then we were off with Mimi to the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences to visit the state nodal center. IGIMS is both a school for General Nurse Midwives and BSc nurses and the broadcasting center for the virtual trainings throughout Bihar. While touring the school, we visited the Fundamentals of Nursing lab, library, computer lab, and various classrooms.

We also met with many of the faculty at IGIMS. The perspective they presented was very valuable, as they emphasized the importance of creating models for the fundamentals of nursing. After a long discussion about the birthing models that we're currently being used to teach midwifery skills, we were able to visit the skills lab. By this time, we were pretty much used to seeing the seven stations that broke up the midwifery skills separated by curtains each with their own models. But it is always interesting to contrast the opinions of each center (which believe me, are usually quite different).

In the skills lab, we were able to visualize the complaints the faculty had with each model, ranging from the fact that the models break too easily to the fact that it is hard to assess a student's performance when using the model. It was also useful to hear what the teachers thought were the benefits of each model they had, from the fact that they were specific to a skill or that the models were very anatomically accurate.

After a quick lunch in the doctors only room at the hospital canteen (I guess we all looked like doctors and got invited in), we returned to watch a virtual training session. Turns out the session we were watching was taught by the same tutor who had taught the session we watched from NMCH on Monday. Well, it actually turns out that there is only one tutor officially running all the virtual trainings until another one can be hired. After her lecture about essential newborn care, we watched a review demonstration of the third stage of labour from the IGIMS skills lab, that was also broadcast to all the other schools.

Broadcasting Center for Virtual Trainings

Skill Demonstration for Virtual Training

After talking to the principal and understanding her opinions on the skills lab and midwifery education for the students, we decided to call it a day. Turns out the sun has basically set and we hadn't realized it until we stepped out of the school. We made our way back to the hotel in the Patna traffic, blasting Bollywood music and trying to sort through information for our presentation on Tuesday (or at least we tried to).

Song of the day: Sooraj Dooba Hain from the movie Roy
Even though I've heard the song before, for some reason, this is the time it got stuck in my (and everyone else's) head. Which you can easily tell whenever there's a silence and someone (Ramji) starts humming the song.

Seeing all these babies made us want to create our own...

Food Babieses

Traditional Norwegian Dessert

Cansu's awesome dinner. From store to table. :P

Norwegian breakfast. Salmon on Salmon on Salmon.

Momos. 

Mo momos.

Cheers.

We asked for recommendations for food in Nepal, and were told to eat at an Italian pizza place. 

I would "dahi" for this puri.

Yes we went to India and ordered Dominos.

....twice in one night. 

It's okay, it was friend in pure ghee.

A sample of my all carb diet. 

Keeping a "thali" of how much food we've eaten.