The team has reconvened in Kampala after an exciting Valentine’s Day weekend. 

The Lion King soundtrack oh so appropriately on repeat in Alex and Meg’s heads the entirety of the weekend, the female representation of the CUES instructor group had an amazing time hanging out amongst the extensive Ugandan animal kingdom up in the North Western part of the country, near Murchison Falls. It was a challenging process choosing a few of Alex’s over 4000 safari images to share with you all, but we have selected an exclusive collection for display!

We have heard word from Ben that he has successfully completed his epic multi-day trek through the Rwenzori Mountains, allegedly ever so slightly “toasted” from the impressive altitudes he endured. We look forward to having him back in the instructor lineup and hearing more about his adventures.

Week 2 of Phase 3 has officially commenced! The beginning class demonstrated that they didn’t spend the entirety of the weekend enjoying the Valentine’s Day festivities, EXCELLING at the practical quiz testing them on the primary portion of the assessment framework. We then tackled the topic of shock. By the end of the lecture the students had a thorough understanding of the WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHY and HOW of circulatory shock and were equipped with the ability to identify signs and symptoms of the early/compensated and late/uncompensated stages of the condition. We then closed the session with our VERY FIRST full patient scenario, a definite CUES milestone!

After a presentation on pregnancy and associated complications (beyond the question of how babies are made haha), the majority of the advanced class was spent administering high fidelity patient scenarios. The students displayed an incredible ability to navigate various medical and/or trauma scenarios, assessing and intervening when necessary, from the dispatch call to handover report upon arrival to the Emergency Department. As instructors, we can’t even begin to describe the feeling of witnessing these students work with each other, critically thinking and applying the extensive knowledge they have worked tirelessly to acquire over the course of their training. I am choking up getting all emotional even writing about it, we are so impressed with this group of dedicated individuals and beyond excited about their futures as first responders in the community of Kawampe, where there is such a desperate need.  

Paul will be heading off to visit the Healthy Child Uganda clinic in Mbarara, that his father, Dr. Godel founded in the early 2000s. He will be dearly missed. Ben will be outnumbered by the ladies for the next three days, but we have a jammed packed itinerary for our students on the horizon. Again, we seriously cannot THANK YOU enough for the support and dedicated following (and thank you specifically for making it to the end of this novel blog update). More to come tomorrow, stay tuned CUES supporters. We NGWAGALA you all!