Kansas

G’day, mate and Welcome to Alice Springs!

After a few beers and too many tears (mostly mine), I left Adelaide last Saturday to head off to the Outback and my last term here in Oz. (Many people offered to take me to the airport; while I would like to think it’s because they were all being polite and wanted to see me off, I’m suspicious they really just wanted to make sure that I left. But I digress.) After I made it to the hospital and dropped 150 pounds of luggage (no kidding!) in the room where I’ll be staying, I went for a walk to take a look around town. 5 minutes later, I was back at the hospital.

And I took the long way.

Yes, the place is that small. It’s supposedly the geographic center of Australia and definitely out in the middle of nowhere. Alice is used by many tourists as a jumping off place to the Outback, Uluru/Ayers Rock and by many Aussies as a great place to hide from their parole officer. To say this place is different is an understatement. And I don’t mean just from Adelaide – I mean from just about every place I have ever been. It is an outpost town that has collected a random sampling of tourists who refuse to leave, Australians who can’t leave, and Aboriginals who have their own culture that seems to run parallel – but not a part of – the white culture here. With all this in mind, I give you my first impression of Alice Springs:

We are not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

These 6 weeks are to fulfill the rural medicine requirement for my degree; I get to spend my time in the Emergency Room. Just for some compare-and-contrast: Flinders Medical Centre serves the southern portion of Adelaide; it has 400 beds and the ER sees 40,000 people every year. ASH (Alice Springs Hospital) has 160 beds, serves an area larger than France and the ER treats 32,000 people every year. This is a place that Doctors without Borders – who sends their medical staff into war zones – brings people for their training. It’s considered a third-world area within a developed country. There is a large Aboriginal population; they account for 80% of the patients in hospital. It’s not unusual for a middle-aged Aboriginal to wander into the hospital and see a white man for the first time in their life. There are diseases seen routinely here that I have only read about, and usually in some advanced form you would never imagine in Adelaide, Washington, DC or even some backwater place like Cincinnati.

Think I might learn a few things?

My address – remember I’m only here for 5 more weeks; if you send anything I’d suggest you do so before June 4:

Bryan Canterbury – Medical Student
Stafford Accommodation
Alice Springs Hospital
PO Box 2234
Alice Springs, NT 0871
Australia

And with that, it’s the weekend. I’ll spend a few hours this weekend in the ER, hoping to treat a few patients and get in good with the ER director. Some classmates from FMC are up here doing rotations as well; we are hoping to do a day trip to see some of the Outback as well. Not to mention gathering up the Tin Man and the Scarecrow to follow that yellow brick road…

As always, Love to All and keep working on your 101 List!
Bryan