Reinnervation

I've decided to revive (resuscitate, perhaps) this blog for the purposes of using it as a sort of public journal during my time in Tanzania this summer. I will do my best to be better about updating it. Hopefully there will be deep thoughts. And pictures. No promises.

Thanks to the generous Human Rights Program at the University of Chicago, I will be spending mid-June to late August working for Women's Dignity (Utu Mwanamke) in Dar Es Salaam. (Though apparently only outsiders use the city's full name. "Dar" it shall be from now on.) I'm really quite excited (and scared. Excitiscared) to work on many of the international women's health issues that drew me into medical school in the first place: family planning, abortion access, and particularly obstetric fistula. In a rather delightful coincidence, the NYTimes has decided to also get into Tanzanian women's health these days, running a series of articles. Today's was about the consequences of unsafe abortion; one last week was a more general article on threats to maternal health. Both were particularly helpful in adding specific detail to my blurry conception of the failings in the health care systems of East Africa.

Departing on June 13th. Much to do.