Teaching in Nepal again

Hello blog followers!

I am reviving my blog about teaching in Nepal.  I will be in Nepal for the first 2 weeks in September teaching medical genetics to the 1st year medical students at the Patan Academy of Health Sciences (PAHS).  This will be the 3rd class for PAHS and the 3rd class I will meet.  I am really looking forward to it.  I will also be doing some faculty development.

I would like to thank Academics Without Borders Canada (AWBC) for their financial support for this trip.  As well, I would like to thank all of those people who have supported me through GoFundMe. 

Hopefully you will follow this blog and find it interesting...or at least entertaining.

Jane

Bagmati River

I have never taken photos of the Bagmati River in past visits to Kathmandu.  I have crossed it so many times on the bridge to Kathmandu from Patan and have been assaulted by the smell.  It is unbearable.

It is so hard to believe that not long ago, according to the people that grew up here, this river was clean and clear and not full of garbage.  So very sad what people, in any country, can do to ruin a beautiful place.

Garden of Dreams and Thamel

After kurta shopping on Saturday, Stephanie and I walked into Thamel to take a look around and to maybe do some shopping.  We went into some pashmina shops, were harrassed by the tiger balm sellers and popped in and out of a few shops.  It was a REALLY hot day. 

We decided to head into the Garden of Dreams for a couple of hours to relax and cool off before we were meeting Katie, Sabita and her husband Sumit, Annie and Will at Fire and Ice for pizza for dinner.

You would not believe that you were in Kathmandu if someone dropped you in the middle of this beautiful oasis just outside of Thamel.

We were so nice and cool and relaxed after a few hours here.  Then we headed to Fire and Ice for a great dinner with some great people

Teaching Medical Genetics in Nepal

Sunday, June 3 was my first day of teaching medical students at PAHS.  I can remember delivering the exact same lecture - The Importance of Genetics in Medicine and Modes of Inheritance - to the 1st batch of PAHS students last year.  I have to say that the classrooms, lecture halls and offices of PAHS were MUCH hotter this year!  The students, hopefully, seemed to get it.

This was also Katie's last day before she headed off to a conference in Europe and then home to Seattle.  It was too bad that our time did not overlap as much this year and I didn't get a chance to see Katie much this time in Nepal.

Katie, Stephanie and me

Babu, Katie and Stephanie

Babu, Katie and me

Kurta Shopping

It's been a little while since I have blogged.  I have been very busy and the internet connection and power are very sketchy here most of the time.  I'm going to start again, but will go back a week to last Saturday.
Stephanie and I asked some of the batch # 1 students to take us kurta shopping!  They were so nice to do so and two of them met us at Patan Hospital gates.  We jumped on the micro-bus to head into Kathmandu and Bhag Bazaar.  They took us to a new mall where we tried on so many kurtas!  It was so much fun and everyone was so helpful. 

Here are some of the kurtas that we tried on in the first store:

It was a lot of fun.  We decided to try on many kurtas that we knew we would not buy just for fun.  So some of the above are pretty funny...

Then we moved on to the next store and here are the ones we tried on:

We bought these ones!!

We ended up choosing the first ones that we tried on in the second store!  We wore them to PAHS on our last day and students coudn't stop staring at us!  They are so comfortable!

PBL Tutor Training at PAHS

Yesterday we wrapped up a 16-hour 2-day PBL (Problem-Based Learning) Tutor Training Workshop at PAHS.  It was a lot of fun, but exhausting at the same time!  We trained 24 various clinicians and basic scientists from PAHS, Patan Hospital as well as others from other hospitals and schools in Kathmandu.  They were such a great group and it was a lot of fun.  I learned so much from them and their great questions.  I think I have enough ideas for 10 research projects in medical education!

This time, we were able to have 8 PAHS medical students help us as mock students to demonstrate the PBL process to the participants.  Four were from 1st year and four from 2nd year.  They did such a great job and took time out of their busy schedules to help us and we really appreciated it!  The tutor trainees were so impressed with their PBL skills - they commented that they were not as smart when they were in medical school.

Hopefully we have managed to increase the number of PBL tutors for PAHS-SOM now.

All the Tutor Training graduates, trainers and Arjun Kharki the Vice Chancellor of PAHS

Shambhu and I setting up

Me - talking about PBL

Day 1 - Acting as a PBL tutor with PAHS students while trainees watch

Workshopping

Day 2 - Mock PBL again

Shambhu thanking the workshop particpants and introducing Arjun

Arjun thanking everyone and congratulating the graduates!