A very good day indeed.
As part of the 2006 FIGO congress, a contingent of obstetricians from various third-world countries were scheduled to arrive at our humble district hospital this morning. They are here to experience first hand how we manage, care for and optimize the health of pregnant mothers and above all understand the strength behind our admirable maternity care which has in the past reduced Malaysia’s maternal mortality rate drastically.
My 15-minute talk on the role of a Malaysian district hospital in improving the outcome of motherhood received great acclaim amongst many FIGO delegates. An obstetrician from Nigeria who speaks immaculate English said it best when he commented that ‘We have to commend you on your fine presentation, especially one coming from a doctor of only three years training.’ My incredulity was profound.
“You know, in India, doctors at a higher level of training than you are not even remotely close to the standard of your presentation. You did a great job.” a facetious Indian obstetrician blurted. Streams of praises like these continued to pour in as I gathered myself before the laptop, packing my possessions to leave the hall. “That was a really excellent presentation.” I thanked their kindness and generosity and replied in a poorly disguised expression of modesty that I was just conveying the facts and only the facts that matter.
* It was evident none of the delegates were even superficially interested in the technical side of my presentation. If they were curious, they didn’t show it. Perhaps, coming from third-world countries, they may not be as technologically inclined. For the record, I used Apple Keynote 3 presentation software (totally kick-ass, and out of this world) to power the display of my slides, a deviation from the usual fanfare of Microsoft PowerPoint (I’m delighted to point out). With the slides maneuvering powered by a Bluetooth phone and standing feet away from the iBook, I suspect my technical presentation know-how must have burnished to some extent the overall quality of the entire show. I wonder if the unusual spectacle of me gesticulating and waving my handphone around as the slide changes itself almost as if coming from a psychic cue from my cortex to the laptop processor had any effect at all to the ingenuity of my performance. Given my bloating self-esteem, it is hard to think otherwise. But then, I am an Apple user. We are part of an elite bunch. We are disposed to perfection, and self-indulgence. A high-level health administrator from the Kementerian Kesihantan Malaysia later accosted me by the stage with another shower of praise before asking me for a copy of my ‘great slides’. Yes, of course. Will be happy to. So, what kind of file format would you like? I asked her in return as I ran the Keynote export command, giving me a slew of file options (Flash movie, PDF, HTML, PowerPoint amongst others) to convert to. She turned to me, clueless and perhaps a little flustered. I was only too glad to help out with this sudden lapse of thinking. How about PowerPoint? She did not even hesitate a second. Fuck Microsoft.
Before vanity rears its ugly head and consumes my sanity, I have to contend that the quality of discussions or rather the exchange of ideas between our doctors and the FIGO delegates was absolutely exhilarating. I was impressed foremost by the delegates’ command of English, something that took me by surprise. Then, I was struck by their complete clarity and understanding of the burden of a safe motherhood and their views on the importance of basic rural obstetrics practice and how they promise they will find ways to adapt our mode of practice back in their countries. “You have a very good system here in your country. You have no needs to defend yourself against accusations of inadequacies in your maternal care. The system works for you.”, a Ugandan consultant obstetrician offered quite graciously.
If you are in some way finding it hard to take in the gravity of the latter statement. Let me draw you a rough sketch here. Hospital attendances for delivery is more than 95% in Malaysia, impressive statistics no doubt. Vis-a-vis many nations from the African continent, the figure is less than 40%, which sadly spells out an appalling number of pregnancy and delivery related morbidities and mortalities. “While I am away for this congress for the past week or so, I am sure there will already be three to four dead mothers back at my hospital in Nigeria.” There has not been a maternal death in my rural district hospital for the past three years, so go figure.