while working on a good update... a few distractors

So, I am quite behind on posts, but as I work on a massive update of all the orientation/meetings/adjustments to life in Vellore…. I have a couple new items to add to my post, which I will add to regularly.  One is “clinical corner” (aimed at my med student/doctor/PhD readers) with interesting cases, clinical pearls, and such.

The other is a hodge-podge of observations, random stories and idiosyncracies of living in semi-urban India.  Sometimes the routine activities and day-to-day experiences in a foreign country are the best ways to learn about the culture…  these are meant to provide a light-hearted glimpse into life, with good intentions only.

Arrival, orientation

I arrived in Vellore last Monday and spent most of the first week settling in, moving into my new apartment, running errands and getting to know the city a bit.
Although it has been 2 years since I was in India, most things seem to come back quickly.  The sensory overload and culture shock seemed much less severe, although I had forgotten how bad the noise pollution is.  I spent half of the 2hr ride from Chennai to Vellore with my fingers in my ears as my taxi driver was extremely fond of the horn.
SunMin (the other Fogarty scholar) and I are staying in a cottage (Poothicote) about 500m from the medical college campus in the southern part of Vellore.  We have a 2-bedroom apartment which is the 2nd and top floor of the home owned by our mentor's great aunt-in-law.  She is 97 and was the first female nursing superintendent of CMC hospital.  Her life experiences are incredible, lots more to come on that as I get all the stories.
Compared to my summer in Mangalore living in a converted hospital room with little more than a bed, desk and bucket bath, having a real apartment, fully furnished, is a huge improvement.  Air-conditioned bedrooms, wireless internet, satelite t.v. and a functional kitchen with appliances leave little to be desired.  
After speaking with so many Tufts folks who visited Vellore and reading lots online, I felt fairly knowledgable about the city when I arrived, and have figured out the main basics in the past week.

This week (week 2) I started an orientation, with many meetings and department tours across CMC, with the goal of learning about different research opportunities here.
After meeting with our mentor, Dr. Gagandeep Kang and telling her my areas of interest, she scheduled me to meet with with key researchers of infectious disease, gastro-intestinal medicine, community health and epidemiology to learn about some of the major ongoing projects.  Additionally, we are spending some time exploring the community health work done at CMC at the community clinics (off-site from the main hospital) that serve the urban poor and rural poor.
CMC's overall mission is three-fold: education, service and research.  Research has always been a key component of the hospital and college, and thus the opportunities here are almost limitless.

After 2 weeks of exploring different units, meeting with researchers and project managers and doing some additional background reading and research, I hopefully will have a few potential research questions that I can further develop into research proposals, and then will continue to pursue one or more of these as a full project.

Background Information

Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholars Program (FICRS):
The FICRS program is a one year research fellowship supported by the Fogarty Center, a division of the National Institute of Health (NIH), for doctoral-level grad students in the health sciences.  It provides the opportunity for mentored research in developing countries with the goal of encouraging them to pursue NIH-funded research in their careers.  There are approximately 30 US scholars at 20 sites throughout the world.
http://www.fogartyscholars.org/scholars/international-clinical-research-scholars-program

Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore: 
Chrisitian Medical College (known as CMC Vellore) is one of India's largest and most reputable medical centers.  It is a tertiary care referral hospital, and treats patients from all over India and the world.

The history of the college's founding is quite interesting: (from Wikipedia)
"The idea of starting a hospital occurred to Ida Sophia Scudder in the late 1800s, when Ida visited her medical missionary father,John Scudder, Jr., at his post in Tamil Nadu. One night, Ida was asked to help three women from different families struggling in difficult childbirth. Custom prevented their husbands from accepting the help of a male doctor and being without training at that time, Ida herself could do nothing. The next morning she was shocked to learn that each of the three women had died. She believed that it was a calling and a challenge set before her by God to begin a ministry dedicated to the health needs of the people of India, particularly women and children. Consequently, Ida went back to America, entered medical training and, in 1899, was one of the first women graduates of the Weill Medical College of Cornell University;

Shortly thereafter, she returned to India and opened a one-bed clinic in Vellore in 1900. Two years later, in 1902, she built a 40-bed hospital. In 1909, she started the School of Nursing, and in 1918, a medical school for women was opened under the name Missionary Medical School for Women. The medical school was upgraded into a university affiliated medical college granting the degree of M.B.B.S. in 1942, under the name Christian Medical College. Men were admitted to this college in 1947, ten in a class of 35."

http://www.cmch-vellore.edu/

Vellore, India:
Vellore is a small city in the southern Tamil Nadu state of India.  The city lies between Chennai and Bangalore and has a population of approx. 1 million.  It is considered a hub for medical tourism, and world-class medical and technological education.
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/india/tamil-nadu/vellore