New Blog

Hello and welcome. I’m James, this is my new personal blog. This will be largely a continuation of last year’s St Mary’s Juba Link Travel Blog (http://stmarysjubalink.blogspot.com) which some readers may be familiar with.

Matt and I

First some rather dry but necessary housekeeping (You can skip this bit...): The switch from an institutional blog title (i.e. St Mary’s Juba Link) to a personal one is largely one of logistics: Firstly I no longer work for St Mary’s hospital and although I remain in very close contact with and supported by the Link Core team at St Mary’s, the current trip to Juba Teaching Hospital has largely been privately rather than corporately arranged. Secondly I hope that this blog will continue in the future as I undertake further adventures in medical travels and an unmodified domain name would be rather confusing. Obviously the St Mary’s Juba Link is entirely relevant to our current trip to Juba Teaching Hospital which I’m sure will be reflected in future posts. In particular we’re looking forward to working a delegation from St Mary’s in December undertaking some fistula repair work, though more of that in due course. Incidentally, the blog title was inspired by a friend I made in India in 2004 and I always rather liked his blog.

In terms of my personal career progress since returning to the UK from Juba in 2008, (if you care) I worked as an SHO for 6 months in ITU and Acute Medicine until August, and secured a training job in Anaesthetics in Wessex, which commences in April 2010. Gaps in medical careers like this are somewhat rare gifts, and hence I was keen to grab the opportunity to do some more overseas work in Southern Sudan. Incidentally David, my partner-in-crime from Juba 2008, also obtained his first choice job and is currently doing core medical training in Exeter, though I’m convinced he’ll also be back in Juba at the earliest opportunity....

A fine specimen I found on our (outside) house wall

My current Juba buddy for 2009 is Matt Dennison, a doctor at the same level as me. We trained together in Southampton and worked together as House Officers in SMH. He’s subsequently been all round the place, latterly working in New Zealand. I’m sure he’ll be guest posting. The blog title in no way is meant to diminish his contribution to this current project, and is merely a reflection of the fact that I’ll be personally taking the blog further in the future.

Right, sorry to bore you with the above, as I’m sure you’re more interested in the good solid life-in-Africa-saving-lives(!) stuff. I strongly believe in keeping blog posts little-and-often and hence I’m gonna put that in a separate post to follow very shortly, with some photos if all goes to plan.

James