Lecturing and such

While the team has been seeing cool clinical stuff, I have been spending my time lecturing, networking, and writing concept sheets for grants. Clearly a different experience, but just as educational. It has been an exhausting first 10 days for me, but I am content to know that I have accomplished a great deal in that time. I have given 5 lectures so far, with 3-4 more to go. Being a faculty member, lecturing is certainly not a new concept to me, but maintaining relevancy of my message to persons whose clinical experiences are so far removed from what I see has been a neat challenge.

Now speaking of lectures, today I had to give a talk on HIV drug resistance. Given the state of my exhaustion and some major abdominal pain I have been having, the team decided, on their own, that they would prepare my lecture for me. Over two nights, these guys researched antiretroviral resistance in textbooks and on the Net and put together a pretty impressive talk. I delivered it today with minimal modification and it has easily been the best received of all my lectures so far. So a pat on the back for my peeps here; they are truly the best, and I was very touched at their generosity. More that that, thought, it was fascinating to see the enthusiasm, teamwork, and brain power on display over the past two nights. My fellow travelers have blogged a bit already and have talked quite a bit about the opportunity to just learn, without interruption or any other pressure. Watching them work with such focus, such motivation, and actually seem to have fun doing it was completely unexpected, given that when assigned something like this most of us tend to groan. Now this response from them could clearly be just a reflection of the magnitude of my pathetic appearance, combined with some obviously humanitarian tendencies of this group. Part of me does like to think, though, that they actually learned a lot from going through this self-assigned exercise. I feel like I have witnessed learning in its purest form, driven entirely by the learner. Maybe there is a model there for medical education...

For those concerned (Amma), I have pretty much recovered from my aforementined GI ailment and am back to eating stuff I have no business eating. Today was a banner day, with notable items including avakaya , hot pepper bajjis, and guava. No sequelae to report. Feeling great. Although...I do have two lectures early next week...hmmm...I wouldn't be surprised if I had some more abdominal pain starting Sunday afternoon or so...

Indian Chinese

One of the greatest gastronomic experiences for me each time I go to India is the consumption of Indian Chinese food. It is very difficult to describe what this is to someone who has not had it. It is not Indian food at all, but it is not Chinese food in terms of what is available in the US. Never having been to China myself, I can't say what is more "authentic". Neither is probably close to the real deal. We sampled a large number of dishes last night: sweet corn soup, manchow soup, Szechuan noodles, spring rolls, paneer satay, and, of course, the greatest of Indian Chinese vegetarian dishes, Vegetables Manchurian (see picture). Very satisfying.

We got to do another favorite activity of mine today as well: Carroms. None of us is particularly good, yet, but playing carroms is way fun.

The first week of the trip, to be spent at Sivananda Rehabilitation Home and NIMS, is pretty much set. We have one more day of R&R. Hopefully, we can catch some sightseeing before the learning starts in earnest, bright and early Monday morning.