Before leaving Kenya, we had two days left in the Nairobi area to visit hospitals that we had not gotten a chance to visit earlier. The first place was Kenyatta Hospital, the largest hospital in all of Kenya. It is a public, government run hospital, which has greatly expanded in size recently.
We met with Dr. Maureen Owiti, a general surgeon proficient in laparosocpy, and watched her perform a minimally invasive histerectomy, as well as a fibroid removal. The procedure itself was very interesting to watch, she was clearly very experienced in laparoscopy, and we also met people intersted in helping us in our research, including a resident and a few theater technicians, who explained to us how they learned laparoscopy outside of the COSECSA program, and how surgical equipment is reused and resterilized.
After finishing at Kenyatta, we then headed for the Aga Khan University Hospital, the largest private hospital in Kenya. Aga Khan is an incredibly well supplied and funded hospital, it looks no different from a hospital that we would see back home. We met with Dr. Steve Mutiso, an OBGYN who was interested in creating a fellowship in laparoscopic surgery at Aga Khan, which would be the first of its kind in Kenya. We talked a lot about his visions for the program and what we observed and learned from the various residents we met over the trip. It is a very interesting idea, and I think it can definitely help generate a lot of interest in minimally invasive surgery, given that there are no other programs like that currently available here. Most residents interested in minimally invasive surgery here end up seeking a fellowship abroad to get the experience they would like. It was a nice conversation, and I think having him as a contact will be very helpful for ideating during our project.
Before leaving Aga Khan, we got PCR Covid tests, as we are required to have a negative covid test three days before returning home.
Finally, we met up again with Dr. Jay Yagnik, the first year surgical resident we met at PCEA Kikuyu Hospital, for dinner. We met him at the Village Markets, a mall north of Nairobi, along with a biomedical engineer friend of his. We also brought with us a prototype developed by Ignacio and his team from the previous year's cohort. The prototype consists of a webcam on a stand pointed downwards, connected by a USB to a phone. The intention is to have the webcam pointed at a plate of food, and the user's normal view of the food blocked, so they have to eat it while viewing the webcam. This is meant to act as an easy way for training hand eye coordination for minimally invasive surgery. Dr. Yagnik liked the idea, and he had a lot of fun using it. He also said he would be interested in helping us facilitate a study with the prototype with his resident friends here in Kenya, while we would test it back home. It was a very fun experience.
We said goodbye to Dr. Yagnik and returned to our hotel, only then coming to the realization that tomorrow will be our final full day in Kenya. We couldn't believe how fast the whole trip went by!