Looking at the history of what Kijabe has been and where it is today, the places it’s been through, and what has been happening at the hospital in the few years I have been here, one thing is apparent, Kijabe must have been set up with God’s mission at the purpose at the center of it.

Somehow, every day, there are patients whose lives are permanently changed because of what we do, and somehow it seems this happens in spite of us!  We look at the big picture and see that God is still at work, his work will still go on. People are coming, needy patients are coming, people in distress from physical or spiritual conditions. Our job as physicians is to look at this and choose to be a part of this.

I see and experience God in real, tangible ways here.  I don’t think I had to leave the US to experience that, but it is making an intentional choice to follow where you think God is leading.  

Seeing what He is doing in Kijabe.  Hearing the stories of where this hospital started over a hundred years ago, the improbabilities of it being what it is today, seeing so many of my colleagues, what they are doing. . .witnessing these miraculous outcomes. 

Even yesterday I was giving exposure to an orthopaedic surgeon and neurosurgeon to the top of the spine through the mouth.  The patient comes in barely able to move and he’s going to leave being able to walk. To me that’s just miraculous. 

Being part of that is really, really fun.  It’s really compelling.  It’s what draws me in and keeps me here. 

When I see a patient coming, I can identify with them.  In 2012 I was an orthopedic patient here.  I had an injury, was treated in a different facility, and here I got the optimal treatment.  I am what I am today because of the treatment I got here at Kijabe.

If you look at the numbers, you can get discouraged.   What makes a difference is, when you focus on that patient you are operating on at that time, when you fix them well.  Deriving joy from that patient is what makes you go on each and every day. 

The lack of safe anesthesia and safe surgery account for more deaths than HIV, TB, and Malaria all added together.  Though it’s not easy to corral these diseases, they can all be cured with medication, HIV can be stopped, TB and Malaria can be cured.  Safe surgery, safe anesthesia, you need skilled practitioners operating in a complex structure.  That’s why it’s so much harder to get a handle on it, the structure involved and the timeline to train people is so long. 

In many ways, I feel like what we are doing at Kijabe is a drop in the bucket.  There’s maybe 1,000 well-trained clinicians in Kenya able to safely administer anesthesia, for a country of 50 million.  But it’s like the mother Theresa quote, “if you cannot feed 1,000 people, feed one.” 

I think of that often when we are doing surgery that can be life changing for a Kenyan child.