Today we went to the MediHeal clinic in Nairobi to meet with one of our most important local contacts, Dr Rafique Parkar.
Dr. Parkar was the first person to introduce laparoscopic surgery in Kenya in the 1990's, he brought it to his clinic after observing it in a conference and training under one of its original pioneers. He then started training other Kenyan surgeons after this, catalyzing its usage. He has the rank of “Elder of the Burning Spear” - the highest honor a civilian can achieve in Kenya. We met Dr. Parkar as well as one of his surgeons, Dr. Kamal Giddie. We had a nice long talk with them about MIS in Kenya, how he contributed to its development, his current practice, and his views on the future of how MIS will become more widely adopted throughout the country and the rest of East Africa. We then watched the two surgeons perform a laparoscopic procedure. After that, Dr Parkar treated us to a “Koroga” lunch- a typical meal setting in Kenya where people gather outside, socialize, and eat Indian food. They described it to us as being their veresion of a barbecue.
They made the food right in front of us, I tried to help, as you can see above, and I must say, the smell was incredible, and it tasted even better.
After, we talked with Marleen Temmerman, a Belgian professor of OB-GYN working in the Aga Khan hospital in Nairobi. She was very nice and we look forward to talking with her more in the future. Finally, we had dinner with Dr Mayabi from Karen hospital and the residents, Dr Matthew and Dr James again. It was another Indian restaurant, but the food was again wonderful.
I feel so happy to have made such nice connections with Dr Matthew and Dr James, we have talked so much over the past few days, and I feel like we have formed a very valuable relationship with them. It really puts this trip in context for me: aside from sightseeing and doing research, as we were intending to do, we also are meeting people and forming meaningful relationships that can last a long time.