A Chance to Share.....

Apparently meeting with the Minister of Health has given me some credibility. Important work somehow doesn't stand alone unless someone important deems it so. I'm fortunate that someone important took notice of what I was doing and considered it worthwhile.....not because I necessarily needed that validation, but because it has opened doors for me that might otherwise have remained closed. Below is a photo of Dr. Bingawaho (the "someone important"):

Dr. Bingawaho has a very impressive resume:

Dr. Binagwaho is currently Senior Lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine in Harvard Medical School. She chairs the Rwanda Country Coordinating Mechanism of The Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. Dr. Binagwaho is the co-chair of the Salzburg Global Seminar "Innovating for Value in Health Care Delivery: better cross-border learning, smarter adaptation and adoption." She is a member of the Global Task Force on Expanded Access to Cancer Care and Control in Developing Countries. Dr. Binagwaho also serves on the Health Advisory Board for Time Magazine; and on the International Strategic Advisory Board for the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London. -- Wikipedia, retrieved November 3, 2011.

She received training as a pediatrician in Belgium and France where she specialized in emergency pediatrics, neonatology, and HIV/AIDS treatment in children and adults. She is the current Minister of Health of Rwanda where she was born, and she has received an honorary PhD from Dartmouth......So, now do you see why I was absolutely terrified to meet with the woman?!?

I'm so glad Lindsay didn't tell me all of this from her Google search before our meeting! I probably would have fainted dead away--as it was I could hardly speak. Now, I don't want you to think she is foreboding or unpleasant. Not at all.....well, maybe just a little foreboding, but she was quite pleasant to us, and it seemed she was giving very serious consideration to the value of the Helping Babies Breathe program for her country. She obviously saw the potential for the program to effect real change because she gave us her endorsement and the go-ahead to proceed with training in the country. I hope I will get a chance to meet her again someday, and I hope next time I can be a little more at ease so we can actually have a two-sided conversation--one in which I am not tongue-tied and in a panic!

People in the U.S. are mildly impressed at this meeting; mainly, I think, because they didn't really think I had it in me to accomplish it (and in reality I didn't accomplish anything, I just showed up for the meeting that Claudia from Eos Visions arranged!) But in any case, several people at home have taken a new look at my work in Rwanda. At first I wanted to say, "Well, what did you think I was doing over there?!?" But I realize that while I talk about my trips a lot, I tend to downplay the importance of what is accomplished. This is
partly because I am having a hard time believing it myself, and partly because I get the sense that some people seem a little miffed at me. My husband says I'm too paranoid, but I think I'm pretty intuitive about these things, and this reaction often puzzles me. Anyone can do what I am doing if they're willing to spend the time and money. Okay, maybe not anyone, but anyone with some training in some kind of useful information, which, after all, is just about anyone! Sooooo, in an effort to calm my paranoia, I decided to share a bit more with people what I actually have been doing in Rwanda the past three + years.

The first sharing opportunity came at the National Association of Neonatal Nurses (NANN) Conference in September 2010. I submitted a poster presentation on the "adoption" of the NICU at King Faisal Hospital in Kigali by my unit at the University of Kansas Hospital. The title of the presentation was "From Kansas to Kigali: Sister Units."




This is Sara and I in front of the poster. Sara, Ali, Alice Cannon, and Jen (my former manager) were all co-authors of this poster because each had a role in making it happen!

Last month I had another opportunity to share, this time at a neonatal update in my own unit. I was given the opportunity to present on Rwanda for CEU credit. I decided to include a variety of experiences and to include a bit more personal information about my trips. I tend to shy away from divulging personal information where Rwanda is concerned, in part because it is deeply personal and tends to make me teary (which sometimes has the effect of making others uncomfortable), and in part because (I know many of you will find this hard to believe) I am actually a rather shy person. Seriously, when it comes to opening up to people about my feelings, I find it difficult--you know, exposing that soft little underbelly and all!

What I found through this experience, though, was that the validation I really wanted was the one I got from my peers and coworkers at this presentation. And the validation wasn't for me, but for Rwanda and for the impoverished, underprivileged and often forgotten people of the world.....my heart.

I have some other sharing opportunities coming up in the next few months...a couple with nursing students, possibly one at Grand Rounds, and at some community organizations. I have also submitted a couple of abstracts for presentation at next year's NANN conference. My goal is to increase awareness of the importance of looking at healthcare from an international perspective because now, more than at any other time in history, we are living in a global community and what effects the least of us will have an impact on most of us. We have to be aware, we have to care, and we have to act before it is too late. This is my purpose, my passion, my crusade.....