Africa is a magical continent. It is filled with unique cultural energy. I promise you will never regret diving into this experience. Whether in a park celebrating a wedding, or simply celebrating life at a night club. Africans are master of this, the magic spreads through the air, and you can feel it.
I had an incredible opportunity to experience Mozambique. In the middle of many English speaking countries, an island speaking Portuguese language.
The country is in the southeast of Africa. The capital is Maputo, which was invaded by Portugal in 1505 that established dominion until 1975 when Mozambique gained its independence. But after that, the country lived years of intense civil war until 1992. Since then Mozambique has lived in a period of relative political stability.
The official language of Mozambique is Portuguese but is spoken mainly as a second language about half of the population. Among the most common native languages are Macua, Tsonga and Seine. The population of about 29 million people is predominantly made up of Bantu peoples.
My story meeting Mozambique
Every time you have doubts about the work is done on the Internet, which many may think irrelevant, I want to say to you that I owe my medical career as an Emergency Physician to #FOAMed. Emergency Medicine was recognized as a specialty in Brazil only in 2015, after many years of struggle. So, we didn’t have much information about this specialty which is still unknown to many students who are currently choosing the specialty, as it was with me. But the fact that someone writes something down and makes it accessible on the internet can really change lives. What led me to understand who I was and what I wanted to do in medicine was this text by Joe Lex. I found my people. My tribe. I understood who I was and fell in love with Emergency Medicine.
After knowing so many amazing FOAMed blogs (emdoc, emcrit, rebelem, etc.), I was so inspired and wanted to do for emergency medicine in my country. I want to create a FOAMed content so that people like me could discover our specialty earlier. And it has to be in Portuguese.
English is important, but nothing so comforting than reading content in your own language. You can think and retain the new knowledge faster, and you can translate the knowledge better to the patient. Understanding is clearer, more accessible, and also brings a sense of belonging and appreciation.
So when I met Abigail Hankin-Wei, we were committed to producing emergency medicine content in Portuguese for the sake of our emergency medicine training programs. Abigail is an inspiring person, who is an emergency physician from the US working in Mozambique full-time to help build the country’s first emergency medicine training program. The residency program is the first one in the country established in 2016, with six young and passionate residents. So I went there to make our bond stronger.
The thing I love most in our specialty is the tribe feeling — the way we immediately recognize the passion in each other. So when you talk about medicine, you know, you understand, you feel belonging to a place, you know that you aren’t the only one crazy doctor that likes to take care of very sick patients. In my routine daily life, it is difficult to encounter this kind of bound.
So, coming to Mozambique and meeting these residents (Brito Gulela, Dino M. Lopes, Euridxe Barbosa, Maria Augusta Taimo, Hermenegildo de Jesus da Silva Macauze and Ezio Massinga) and two more physicians from US (Patrick Connel and Rodolfo Loureiro) were the same exactly how I felt. I was among friends, equals, and I felt like I was at home.
The Story
In Mozambique, we worked at the Mavalane Hospital. I assumed that it is a secondary level hospital, but with a real lack of support. The patients were respiratory failure, abdominal pain, fever, malaria, tuberculosis, lots of complications of HIV, acute stroke, high hypertensive emergencies, etc. They could only provide oxygen (with limitation), and some basic medications.
In the first week, the x-ray machine was broken, but the show must go on, and they did the best they could, treated the most likely disease in their environment with little room for a thorough investigation. They placed the sickest patients in a separate room, the only room in the department where they could get oxygen therapy, which came in two large cylinders. They transferred the most severe patients (which had to be very sick) with potential for recovery to the Central Hospital. As Patrick used to say, the work of the Emergency Physician is to separate the sheep from the goats, so they have to learn as best as they can.
One brilliant thing was the use of POCUS, which is a great value in this context, and I was able to learn a lot from them as I still developing my skills. In need of a CT imaging, the patient has to be referred to the Central Hospital (level one, but still with many limitations). It has to be really thought through because there are limited spots daily. Some conditions could be done, some conditions not. It should change treatment and outcome in a patient with possible good prognosis.
Sometimes the days were really harder, especially when you achieved a certain level of treatment, and you did not have more options to use. They couldn’t do fancy things like NIMV or intubation, or continuous infusion of drugs. They do what they could with their best, and we wait and hope.
The human body is amazing, they are particularly strong here, and one thing I brought with me from this experience is that some patients really get better despite our limitations.
Of course, it would be a lot better to help all patients get better faster and safer. But really, our job is not the most important part. The body is the king. We need to recognize this as quickly as possible in our careers and understand how much we should hasten an improvement and how much we should just wait from the body, without feeling resentful of ourselves when the body achieve its’ limitations, because, in fact, we (as doctors) don’t have that much power as sometimes we think we have.
The environment is harsh. The team has to be practical. Patients give themselves to care, and the team does what they need to do with what they have. Sometimes it was hard to see that cold reality. But again, I could testify how education and love can save the world! In one week, I could see the work of the residents changing everything, turning everything better, lighter, humanized with meaning. They educate the team; they treat the patients with passion and respect; the team wants to be like them: education is the power.
You have to celebrate each small victory
From time to time you should remember and appreciate people for the little good things they do, even if seems small in a big context. So, they don’t forget the small victories, that is what gave us fuel to keep going.
When I was about to leave, we set and talk about their expectations. I could not be more inspired by their clear awareness. They know the hard work that is ahead. But they have dreams about a more organized emergency health care system. They have a passion (inherent in the emergency physician). They have a good heart, strong determinations, vision, and they are smart.
They truly have the magic!
They know there’s still a lot of uncertainty, will the specialty be recognized someday? Will be a place to work? Will the residency grow? Will they have a spot in the most important hospital? They don’t know yet. But they are studying, traveling, receiving people of around the world with humbleness, willing to learn, to improve, to be able to do the most exciting things for their patient and their country.
I would like to remind that planting an unprecedented program in such an arid place is work for many people. And this team needs recognition, so my special thanks to Dr. Kevin Lunney, who creates PLeDGE Health ONG, that is helping support the residency program.
Special thanks to Sarah Mondlane to her work at PLeDGE Health, and for being the sweetest, kindest hostess in the world. Her love for this cause is pure inspiration.
And thank Dra Otilia Neves, member of the Ministry of Health, and coordinator of the program, who kindness accepted us in Mozambique.
I hope that the work of this team resonates forever in Mozambique.
I’ve had the honor to work with the whole of the 6 residents from Mozambique for 6 months when they came to Dar es salaam. I miss them and can not wait for an opportunity to visit and assist with some faculty work in the bread future in Mozambique.