Connecting with my colleagues over the past two weeks has been quite a unique experience. To start with, this is probably the most Tamil I've spoken continuously in the last 20 years, and so it's taken me a while to become comfortable speaking my choppy Tamil with people whom I've never met before. Luckily, however, this hasn't come in the way of making meaningful connections. Over the past week, as my colleagues and I have been getting to know each other, we've had some really interesting conversations comparing and contrasting methods of education, research, and patient care between the US and India. Especially when it comes to education, the idea of having to get a 4-year bachelor's degree before a 4-year medical degree is quite new to them - in India, prospective medical students start practical "medical school" training from 11th grade, with an MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) degree. It's really cool to me how you can get hands-on medical training right out of high school - for those who know they want to be a doctor, it's a great way to start learning about what you love from an earlier age. 

In the clinic, I got to be a part of some really interesting events this week. On Monday, I got to watch a live surgical removal of a carcinoma tumor in a patient's colon. It was extremely rewarding to be in the operating room from the time they put the patient under to when they woke him up, and I was extremely grateful to the head surgeon who let me observe and walked me each step he was doing. On Wednesday, the clinic conducted a camp in the outskirts of the city at a local high school, providing free-of-cost breast examinations, mammograms, pap smears, and HPV vaccines, alongside educational seminars on how to prevent cervical and breast cancers. Beforehand, I got to meet with the head doctor, who walked me through some of the epidemiological data of India's most prevalent cancers, and the factors that lead to their mortality. It was really gratifying during the camp to see directly the importance and impact of education and accessible diagnostic care for the community's teachers, parents, and students. On the side, I've also been compiling epidemiological data we have been collecting from the patients to assess whether there are some findings we can publish on factors that limit access to diagnosis and treatment of cancers in Chennai. 

I'm grateful to have hit the ground running with work at the clinic, and am looking forward to the next 4 weeks!

Here's some photos from the surgery, and the camp :)