Proud to be a Buckeye

By Timothy Landers, RN, PhD
Ohio State College of Nursing

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I have never been prouder to be a Buckeye.  Over the past two weeks, I’ve dealt with internet issues, minor illnesses, unusual foods, a language I didn’t understand, and complex, challenging research problems.

But, I didn’t do it alone.  These glitches have shown me the strength of Ohio State.

It’s very clear that Ohio State has great standing and respect in Gondar.  I can not count the number of times that people referred to “Dr. Wondwossen” or “The Famous Thomas Wittum.”  These are colleagues whom I have also known and respected for years.

Internet issues have given me challenges getting some articles I needed for my work here.  An email to the College of Nursing education guru Linda Daley, and to our amazing student worker Gabby, and I had a nice starting bibliography.

Some minor health issues were easy to address thanks to good planning and lessons from Diane Orlov at the College of Medicine’s Travel/ID clinic.

Our cultural ambassador, professional colleague, translator, psychotherapist, and friend this week has been Baye Molla from the College of Veterinary Medicine.  There are so many examples of him making sure we were comfortable and had what we needed – offering soup to one of my colleagues when she was sick, going out to find the “Scotch tape” (pronounced the same in Amharic!) at 11:00 p.m., negotiating a non-tourist taxi rate, or helping me order dinner for the tenth time.  In the end, I settled on ordering last and saying, “the same as Baye.”

I know Baye misses his family and he is looking forward to having his daughter pick him up at the airport with her new driver’s license.  Even still, he spent hours and hours with us demonstrating the Ethiopian friendship hug, explaining that “it’s possible” means “maybe,” taking troublesome faculty to a tej (mead) bar, or guiding us through cultural nuances.

In our research methods course, I needed clinical examples that were relevant for the optometrists in the class.  A couple of hours after an email to members of the Ohio State-Ethiopia team, Andrew Emch and Dean VanNasdale from the College of Optometry, I had a nice list of references to nominal, ordinal, and continuous variables to use during lecture.  The optometrists in class were impressed that I knew so much about eyes.  I don’t, but I got friends.

Another student from our One Health Institute is developing a research project on causes of coma in patients who present to the University of Gondar hospital.  He said it would be nice to have a neurosurgeon review the protocol with him, but there is only one neurosurgeon in Ethiopia and he is 4 hours away.  It just so happens that the Ohio State-Ethiopia team has our own neurosurgeon, Eric Sauvageau, and we arranged a consultation on this project when he is in Gondar next week.

I know that the efforts we make on behalf of team Ohio State aren’t always recognized immediately.

No one knew that one of the students on the Ohio State-Gondar rabies project is the daughter of a former professor of mine, Phil Binkley, who was very influential in shaping me as a researcher.  When she arrived, my very small form of repayment to him was to tell his daughter to sit down with my laptop and email her father that she had arrived safely.

Throngs of eager students here in Gondar are awaiting lectures from The Famous Thomas Wittum – just as much as I looked forward to his lectures on “necessary” and “sufficient” causes when I was a doctoral student.

The research collaborations we’ve built the past few weeks were possible because of all the ground work and trust that has been built between these two Universities over the past several years.

Years of work by Gebreyes, his team, and support from the deans of the health sciences colleges have made this possible.

With the strength of the Ohio State-University of Gondar partnership, there are years of a fruitful and productive relationship to come!

I hope that some of the networking the College of Nursing team has been doing will be useful for researchers from Ohio State still to visit Gondar.

And for men like Baye Molla – who are compassionate and kind while they are challenging, effective teachers, there must be some special award.

I think Woody Hayes called, “Paying it Forward.”  Thank you, team Buckeyes, for having paid it forward!

Photo by Steve Grant

Photo by Steve Grant

University of Gondar graduation

By Ally Sterman
Student, Ohio State College of Veterinary Medicine

Yesterday was a day of celebration here in Gondar. The university graduated over 45,00 students today. Students graduating were from a variety of fields and disciplines including undergraduate, masters, and professional students. The University of Gondar also graduated three PhD students in the field of public health from the College of Medicine and Health Sciences, which was a first for the university. Most of the students were undergraduate students with close to 1,000 students from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities. Next was Faculty of Natural and Computational Science with 850 students. The Faculty of the Veterinary Medicine will graduate their first class next year though there were students who graduated today with a degree in the field of veterinary public health.

Though a majority of the graduation process was similar there were a few subtle differences between graduation here and at Ohio State. In the states it is typical for graduates to enter to the song Pomp and Circumstance. Today they entered to a different song that seemed to be much shorter and strictly keyboard-based.  Another big difference, here in Gondar they announced and gave awards to students with the highest grades in their respective fields as they graduate. Though we acknowledge them in our programs, with cords or other visual means, we do not announce their names.

There were also a lot of similarities. They had speeches including one from their president and then a special guest speaker. Very similar to Ohio State, they awarded the speaker an honorary degree from the university. They also dressed very similar. Students and faculty were in the black graduation robes with hoods if they were from a degree program that we would hood for, but the undergraduates had sashes where we would have nothing to distinguish the different undergraduate majors.

Below is a video taken while graduates are walking in. Many are seated while quite a few are still walking past. In the background you can hear the music they are entering to, cheers from graduates/families/friends. You can also see some of the professors and external examiners that came to help give exams or determine if candidates were eligible to graduate.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/K1hiRAxU0J4]

Landers: Nurses are awesome, say it loud and proud!

By Timothy Landers, RN, PhD
Ohio State College of Nursing
and Gennit*, 9th grader from Atlanta, Ga.

*Gennit is not her real name but the story is true.  Her mom gave us permission (from the row behind us) to use this story and photo.  Hopefully, this counts as her “What I did over summer vacation” essay when school starts.

I’m sitting on the plane with Gennit, a 13-year old girl who was born in Ethiopia, but now lives in Atlanta with her brother and parents.  Gennit is a nice and articulate 13-year girl, and we chatted during the 13-hour flight about our experiences in Ethiopia.

photo-2She had a lot of things to say, and I noticed that she was somewhat soft-spoken making it difficult to hear her at times.  I asked her about my observation that many Ethiopian girls and women speak softly and what she thought about that.

Gennit told me she thought is was more “ladylike” to speak softly and, in Ethiopia, children are taught that it is wrong for a girl to talk loudly.

She spoke in her own dialect – the American southern teenager — and said, “Like, it’s like wrong for a girl to speak like that.  Ok, like, it’s just like, everyone has, like, their own traditions and, like, it’s just how a girl is raised.”

At the same time, she had some very interesting and important opinions to share.  It’s, like, totally cool that a 13-year-old gets this linguistics lesson.

I started thinking about what this means for nurses and for nursing.  It is often difficult for us to articulate our contribution to health and health care.  We are trained to be reserved and deferent.  It’s considered respectful, but it means that our voices are not heard.  This can be especially true at the table of health care decision-making.

As we work with our colleagues from the University of Gondar, we need to encourage them to represent nurses in a way that is culturally acceptable and to advocate for nursing’s contribution to patient outcomes — to speak up for what nurses mean to patient care.

This is true for us in Ohio, too.  We should learn to make our voices heard.

REPRESENT!

What nurses do is, like, totally awesome!

Data collection in Debark

By Karissa Magnuson
Student, Ohio State College of Veterinary Medicine

For the past two days we have been in Debark, a town about 100 kilometers north of Gondar. Debark was our second data collection site for our rabies research project.

It is a common resting place for tourists who wish to visit the Simien Mountains. On our two-hour drive up to the city, we passed stunning scenery. The countryside is full of lush, rolling hills and looks like a patchwork quilt of rich coffee brown fields and vibrant green countryside.

We passed many farmers out plowing their fields with oxen and an old-fashioned plow. It was idyllic, and I felt like I had stepped back into a different time.  It was hard to go five minutes without seeing a shepherd out with his flock of goats or sheep, and there were always cows, goats, and sheep grazing in the distance. Our van had to stop or slow down a few times as wandering goats, sheep, and cattle crossed the road.

The people of Debark were very friendly and accommodating. For the project, my team was in charge of urban adults and children. It was truly a privilege to be able to walk their streets and be invited into their houses, especially since they knew nothing about me. Every house we went to, I was offered a chair or a place to sit, and a few times, they roasted a snack for me over their fire for me to eat. The hospitality here was truly amazing.

Our last day of data collection, we went up to a small neighborhood on a hill. Immediately we were surrounded by a huge group of children, all probably under the age of 10. They were all extremely friendly and asked me my name.

As my Ethiopian team members told them about the study and asked if they would like to participate, one of the little girls grabbed my hand.

All the children were eager to participate in the study. As we followed them back to their houses, my other hand was grabbed by a little boy, and I was led off down the dirt road to their homes.  Walking from one house to another, my hand was never empty. At one point, two of the children had a little disagreement about who actually got to hold my hand.

When we finished our data collection and were saying goodbye, all the children who had followed us around came over to me and shook my hand, and we touched shoulders. In Ethiopia, when you greet someone you shake hands and touch shoulders with the person. There must have been six or seven kids in line to say goodbye to me. It was truly a heartwarming and memorable experience that I will carry with me forever.

Whether Ethiopia or U.S., independence is a global value

imageBy Ally Sterman
Student, Ohio State College of Veterinary Medicine

Traditions and holidays are important wherever you are and know no boundaries. This holds true for the four of us students working here in Ethiopia. As July 4, neared we thought of the best ways to celebrate this holiday while abroad. Through Ethiopia was doesn’t officially have an Independence Day as we do in the states, they celebrate Adwa Victory in February. This is in memory of the Battle of Adwa, when they freed Ethiopia from Italian colonization.

We were in luck when we found our local convenient store ( a very small one room store with items on all the walls and one very small row of cookies, cereals and juices) at the end of our street had fireworks and sparklers. We purchased a few to celebrate and help make it feel like home.

We decided to try to find something very American for dinner and since our luck with cheeseburgers wasn’t going to well, and hot dogs aren’t common, we all agreed pizza was our best option. We celebrated our Fourth of July as best we could with pizza and fireworks. It wasn’t a traditional picnic cookout with the family and ending the evening with fireworks however it came pretty close.

We have all become close here like family, and our pizza and sparklers were just as much fun as a picnic and fireworks. All in all it was a successful Fourth of July celebration here halfway across the world.

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Winner Winner, no more cheeseburger for dinner

By Korbin Smith
Student, Ohio State College of Medicine
School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences

If there was a competition for the first Ohio State student to get sick during the summer research project, I came out victorious.

I have tried many different types of dishes without getting sick. However, I figured I would give their American equivalent to a cheeseburger a try, and it was a bad decision. Unlike when I feel ill in the U.S., getting ill here is more serious. The majority of our Ethiopian collaborators have reached out to me in one way or another to make sure I am OK. They are all truly compassionate and caring.

Since the rest of our research team changed cities, I am the only one left in Gondar until tomorrow. I immediately noticed people are more willing to practice their English on an individual rather than a group. My waitress for dinner tonight was practicing with me and I could tell she was very excited when I understood and responded.

I understand what it feels like to try to have a conversation in a language you aren’t familiar with. Anytime I can say “Hello” or “Thank you” in Amharic, I do so.

I have also noticed that most conversation stops briefly when I walk into a room.  There aren’t a lot of 6’3” blonde, blue-eyed males walking around in athletic shorts and an Ohio State T-shirt.

All-in-all, as we continue our stay here in Gondar, I am constantly impressed with the class and generosity of the people of Ethiopia.

A lesson in the art of craftsmanship

By Tim Landers, RN, PhD
Ohio State College of Nursingflower_napkin

I’ve noticed some really excellent craftsmanship in Gondar.

Craftsmanship is evident in the way a napkin is carefully folded that turns an evening meal in to a “dinner.”  And craftsmanship is the patience of our waitress giving me a lesson in napkin folding.

Craftsmanship is the way that the pharmacist carefully wrapped up a packet of medication she prescribed for me because of the cold I’ve acquired in my last days in Gondar. It says, “I hope you feel better” before you open it.

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Craftsmanship is the certain way a bundle of straw is tied to the back of a donkey on the way to market or the way a cup of coffee is poured when the person actually cares. It’s the expert skill and flair a microbiologist uses to streak an agar plate or a nurse uses to comfort an ailing patient.

One of the great craftsmen I have met is Mr. Abebe Demise. Abebe has a small shoe-shine bench outside our hotel. What makes him a craftsman is not that he does a good job cleaning and shining shoes; he does a great job on shoes from the dusty streets of Gondar. abebe_working

What makes him a craftsman is that when Mr. Abebe is at work shining shoes, he is in the zone. His full attention is on the task at hand. He uses the tools of his trade – he uses all of his attention – to shine shoes. To watch him in action is to see a master craftsman at work.

Craftsmanship is a difficult concept to teach to students in our “Research Methods Course.” There is just a way that a carefully constructed title of a scientific paper can grab your attention. A well-written set of specific aims can explain the purpose of a research project in a way that extends beyond the words printed on the page.  A well-organized literature review can make reviewers beg you to do your experiments.

This skill of craftsmanship in writing grants takes years to develop — and I am no pro.  But I know good grants craftsmanship when I read it—and when I see it.

On my last day in Gondar, Abebe Demise called to me from his shoe-shine bench across the street.  He had a small envelope for me with “For: Tim Landers, From: Abebe” written on the outside.  Inside were two picture postcards of Gondar.

I’d like to think that maybe – just maybe – this was one craftsman’s way of acknowledging a fellow craftsman.

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Professor Tim Landers and Mr. Abebe Demise, one of the great craftsman of Ethiopia.

Microbiology lab at the University of Gondar hospital

From left to right: Ohio State's Baye Molla, DVM, PhD, and Tim Landers, RN, PhD along with University of Gondar's Wubet Birhan, head, School of Biomedical and Laboratory Sciences, Kassie Molla, head, microbiology laboratory, and Tigist Feleke, lab technologist

From left to right: Ohio State’s Baye Molla and Tim Landers along with University of Gondar’s Wubet Birhan, head, School of Biomedical and Laboratory Sciences; Kassie Molla, head, microbiology laboratory; and Tigist Feleke, lab technologist

By Bayleyegn Molla, DVM, PhD
College of Veterinary Medicine, The Ohio State University

This week, I had a chance to tour the microbiology at the University of Gondar Hospital.

The lab processes hundreds of samples from patients every month. Patient samples are accepted, labeled and sent on to the microbiology lab where they are placed in different agars and broths to check for the growth of bacteria in patient samples.

I was surprised when the staff showed us a large book where the date, source, and patient information are recorded. This can be a time consuming task and makes it difficult to transmit results efficiently to clinicians. Papers can be torn, lost, or burned.

It is a less than ideal system.

When I asked to see the computer, they happily showed us the new electronic system to track individual results including results, name of the organism recovered, and information about antibiotic resistance for each organism. Having this system allows more rapid feedback to clinic staff and can be used to research problems in microbiology.

I was relieved and encouraged that they were using this technology.

This made me reflect on how I still rely on older systems in my old work.  They are comfortable for us to use. In order to really harness technology to address important health and food safety problems, I also need to help develop effective technology, trust it to perform, and use it to its maximum.

That is what I learned in the microbiology lab.

Ohio State in Ethiopia: Now the students’ work begins

By Ally Sterman
Student, Ohio State College of Veterinary Medicine

With the start of the both the new week and new month our Ethiopia summer project really begins. Though we four students from various colleges at Ohio State arrived near the end of last week in Ethiopia, we did not begin our field work until July 1.

Our project takes us into both the rural and urban communities interviewing local adults, children, policy makers, community and faith leaders, as well as health care workers about rabies and dogs. We are set to travel around to three different areas before a workshop is held in Addis Ababa to discuss rabies further in mid-July.

However we do not go out alone. Each Ohio State student has two wonderful Ethiopian University of Gondar partners. These individuals are primarily faculty and staff at the university from a variety of fields/disciplines. They not only serve as interpreters for our project but tour guides of the city and historians for Ethiopia’s culture/traditions/history. They are quickly becoming lifelong and treasured friends. I know I can speak for all of the students about how grateful and appreciative we are for their help and how much fun/enjoyable they are making this experience.

The picture below was taken before one of the interviews conducted by my group. My group’s main focus is community leaders which include teachers, faith leaders, elders, and other various leaders in both the rural and urban settings. This picture was taken of one of the churches we travelled to in the city of Gondar where we had the opportunity to meet and talk to the priests about rabies and the dog population here in the city.

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