Latest / The World Knowledge / How Dreams Survive Hardship

Transcript

How Dreams Survive Hardship · The World Knowledge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Well, good afternoon, listeners. Thank you for listening to Lament
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: of Hope podcast. And I'm very grateful. This is gonna
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: be a little unconventional, because if you're watching this, you're
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: gonna see it's just the logo for the podcast. But Dr.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Katina and I really tried. And unfortunately, we weren't able
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: to do video, but that's okay. He is in Sudan
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: right now, And he is Dr. Tom Katina. And I
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: actually found out about him because I was doing research
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: on just different individuals who do any kind of humanitarian projects.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: And I came across his name and he works in Sudan,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: specifically in the Nuba mountain region. And he is, if
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: I believe this is correct, you're studying, just the one
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: doctor for this hospital there?
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I was for many years now, thankfully. We have,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: as myself and at the hospital proper, we have three
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: other NUBA doctors who have finished medical school and internship.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: They're junior doctors, but they are medical doctors. They did
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: the medical school in South Sudan. So I've got those
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: three other doctors with me now.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, and this is called Mother Mercy Hospital, right?
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: That is correct, right.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Do you still live... Because when I was doing the research,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: it said you lived next to the hospital in a hut.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Is that still the case, or.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I live right behind the hospital. Now it's a
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: little more of a glorified hut. It's a brick building.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: And we've got a metal roof now. We had a
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: straw roof before. My kids stay in a real hut.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: So we have a compound with a few buildings, a
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: few small buildings on it. My wife and I stay
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: in one of the buildings, which is now a brick
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: structure with a metal roof. It was at a straw
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: roof forever. And my kids stay in kind of stone buildings.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: same little area.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: And the hospital it still is so it serves very
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: poor people and when i was looking at the numbers
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: i mean this is probably not accurate anymore but you
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: were doing at one point you were working seven days
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: a week and you were doing like 500 patients a day.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah i mean unfortunately hasn't changed that much i'm still
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: working seven days a week um and it's roughly around
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: the same number i've got i've got more help now
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: i've got these the junior doctors that are helping a
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: fair bit uh but it's still a huge number of
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: people that i've at least have to see every day
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: they'll do kind of a screening of a lot of
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: those patients but i'll and kind of come up with
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: a plan with them. Definitely better than it was, but
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: still pretty, pretty fast paced and pretty hectic.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: So can I ask, cause I mean, even if you're
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: not the only doctor, you are like the, the most
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: experienced doctor. So you're going to be the one who's
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: going to make the hard decisions and also be the
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: one that is consulted several times. So and maybe you can't,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but how does it look? Because I
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: know you've, you wanted to do this and I want
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: to talk about your faith a little bit as well. Um,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: but you really have a heart for people who don't
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: have medical care and you wanted to come and provide
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: very professional medical care for people specifically in Sudan who
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: don't have that for very poor individuals. And how do you, like,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: if you're seeing that many people, in a day or estimated,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: you know, we can't know for sure. How does it,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: how do you focus in and hone in on one
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: patient at a time while you're seeing them? Like, cause
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: I would feel like my mind is running and racing.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: How are you, when you sit down with that one
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: patient and then, you know, you're going to have to
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: see someone else and everyone needs your time, but you
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: also want to have a heart of service. How are
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: you doing that? If there's just so much on your
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: shoulders to.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Do, Yeah, you know, the numbers are pretty overwhelming. You know,
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: now I probably will see closer to 300, 350 a day.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: It's still a huge number. But over the years, I've
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: been here now for 18 years. I've been working in
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Africa for 20, 26 years. And, you know, that's all
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: I've done every day for 26 years is see sick people.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: So over time, you get pretty good at getting through
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: stuff pretty fast. and you know it's a lot of
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: it's a lot of we in medical field called triage
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: so we kind of see a big picture of people
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: it's okay this one this one uh i know what's
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: going on with them you kind of do a quick
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: quick hello a quick check up this is what we
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: do today it's got to be at that pace somebody
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: else that's got something a little more complicated you got
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: to slow yourself down really take time what's going on
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: with him or her. But a lot of them, it's
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: just like pattern recognition. You know, I've seen so many
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: patients over the years, I can just look at them
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: very quickly and say, okay, I think this is the issue.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and do this. Now it's better because
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: I've got, again, there's usually a junior doctor and we
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: have other people called clerics as part of the team
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: doing rounds that day. So I go, I'll make a
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: quick decision on something, and I have them do a
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: lot of the back talk. So, okay, I need you
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: to go back and talk to this family about what
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: this patient's diagnosis is. What are the potentials that we
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: can do for treatment? This is why we're choosing this
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: course of treatment. with that family explaining things. It's definitely
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: not ideal as a doc to try to do things
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: so quickly, but I think just through the time pressure,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: that's how I've got to do it. And unfortunately now
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: I still have to kind of follow that mode. We'll
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: get through things pretty quickly, but it's just been kind
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: of learned responses over the years. I'm able to get
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: through a big crowd of people pretty fast just by
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: nature of having done it so many times over so
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: many years.