Jour de la femme.

Today is Jour de la femme, a national holiday in Rwanda to celebrate women. What a great idea! There was no elective surgery today so we took the opportunity to tour the operating rooms with Franco, the head of CASIEF. It is incredible how much things have improved in one year. The operating rooms are spacious and have new anesthesia machines and monitors. There are still some older Glostavents, which Franco is demonstrating for Ariane. The OR's are hot, humid and smell musty but we are hoping this will improve when the windows get bug nets and we can have some ventilation. There is no scavenging so people are breathing halothane all day and getting sleepy.

We had a very long and productive meeting with anesthesia faculty from the three teaching hospitals. The residency program has made huge progress but there are still many challenges. We talked about the need to set clear objectives and give regular evaluation and feedback.

There is a surgeon from Mcgill who is visiting Rwanda to research setting up a similar program to CASIEF to assist in training surgical residents. He has been warmly received and it looks like this program will be starting in early 2011. The surgical residents admire the anesthesia program and are very excited they will also receive the attention of volunteer faculty.