Preparation

So I am off to Niamey in Niger this summer for my elective - two months of living in the poorest country in the world (according to the UNDP Human Development Index) and experiencing some medicine without anyone squabbling over whether they should get this or that drug on the NHS, or whether having to pay to have your GP look at your cold at 11:30 at night.

Needless to say, I'm looking forward to it - it's also part of Francophone West Africa, so I get to brush up on my French and perhaps try to learn Hausa. My mother is not looking forward to it: she thinks I will catch some hideous disease there and/or be kidnapped by fundamentalists and held for ransom. I've been trying to persuade her that it's no more or less dangerous than Vellore or Addis Ababa where I've already been - but to no avail.

However, one of the fun things had been deciding what kit I'm going to take out with me - I don't mean all the things I'm going to have to nick from the hospital beforehand (e.g. boxes of gloves, probably a bunch of needles, syringes and cannulae, all that sort of thing), but more things I can buy to take out with me.

First is a wind-up torch. I think it looks pretty cool, don't you? And if it's anything like Addis, where the lights went out during surgery several times, it may even be lifesaving... The photo to the right may explain why the lights went out - that was one of the three plugs in the theatre they used for caesarean sections...