Lesli Fisher’s Blog

India so far

I have arrived safely in India.  After a very long flight, we arrived at 1:20am on Saturday. We were then taken by autorickshaw (three wheeled buggy) with all our luggage to the YWCA.  That was quite an experience as it was very late and we were not sure where he was going.  We just had to trust that he would get us there safely.

We spent 2 days in Chennai.  The city is huge and there are people, animals, and motorcycles everywhere!  The traffic in India is definitely unique!  They honk the horn at everyone they pass.  We were able to see the Indian ocean and get our feet wet.  We then visited the Church of St Thomas. St Thomas was actually buried where the church stands today.  Our driver, not by our request, then took us to a huge Hindu temple.  It was very colorful, but weird. I had a bad feeling the whole time I was walking around there.  After that, we finally arrived to a shopping mall, and shopped for a couple of hours.  Sunday, we went to a market in the morning, then proceeded on to Vellore.

I was dropped off at the Modale International Student Hostel on the CMC campus.  I have met so many people from all over the world.  It has been quite fun hearing about their programs and how they differ from the States.  So far I have met people from Australia, The Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland.

On Monday, I started work at CMC.  The pharmacy is gigantic.  I had no idea how large and advanced it would be.  I was in the Main Pharmacy which provides drugs and surgical supplies for all inpatients.  A relative of the patient has to first pay for the drugs, then pick up the drugs from the pharmacy to bring back to the Ward.  On average they dispense 6300 articles a day!!!  That blows my mind!  It was quite busy and I tried to help pull meds for them, but all the drug names are different and quite hard to find as they have their own system of organizing.  Maybe after a couple of days the drug names will become more familiar.

Today I am in the Endocrinology Clinical Trials department.  I am learning about all the different clinical trials going on here.  This department alone has 18 clinical pharmacist working on 13 different trials.  Again, it is much more advanced than I expected.  Everything is online including CT scans, X-rays, and physician notes.  They are working on some really interesting research.  I will be here the rest of the week.  The nice thing about this department is that I can use the internet and it is air conditioned.

I have experienced quite a bit of culture shock!  Yesterday during lunch all I wanted was to go home, but by the end of the day, things were looking up.  Please pray that I will adjust and for strength.

I hope to get internet at the hostel sometime this week and will write again then.

Lesli