First day's work

Finally met my host this morning - Asma. She took me to the hospital, where nobody had any idea who I was, and then on to the correct hospital. Found the department of internal medicine where I'll be based, and met the medical team. It's quite a contrast to the London hospitals I'm used to! The whole department is a single floor of a small ramshackle building in the corner of the hospital site, with a broken lift and rubble around the entrance. Off the central corridor are 4 wards, with 6 beds in each; although continuing the "nobody to be found anywhere" theme of Ramadan, very few of these are actually occupied. There's no alcohol gel (or in fact any hand-washing facilities at all), people don't wear gloves, and all the notes are kept in big brown envelopes. There's not really any equipment to be seen other than an ECG machine that look like it might be powered by coal.
There was an awful lot of waiting around, but eventually a ward round happened. Everything is in French or Arabic, one being only marginally easier for me to understand than the other. There was a huge group of people, made up of students of all kinds - medicine, pharmacy, genetics, biochemistry, theology, archaeology. The doctor was pretty good to me, explaining what the management plan was for each patient and asking me questions - although keeping up with the French was tough. We saw all the patients, most of whom are diabetic and are suffering from complications surrounding that. The last patient was more interesting but I'll save the medical details for a separate post.
Everything was over by about 11 am, and people just sort of wandered off, and so I did too. Next week there might be more action apparently, as the head of department is back from holiday. We'll see. For the moment, I'm off to learn about sarcoidosis and Sjögren's syndrome in preparation for rounds tomorrow morning.