Half way through the day Dr. Martin came up to me and asked if I was ready to go to Mulago. I replied yes, not really realizing that he meant right then. So I quickly got ready to go and we were on our way. We had a few stops before we went to the hospital; we met with a group to talk about installing water filters, went to a rotary club lunch meeting (at which I was introduced and greeted as an honorary guest), and drop some paperwork off at an office.

Once we arrived at Mulago, I was instantly stunned. There was a line of people around 200 feet long waiting to just get in the gate into the hospital compound, and that was just the side entrance. Dr. Martin explained that the hospital was built to hold 1500 patients, but holds anywhere from 2500 to 3000 patients at any given time, and I think that number doesn't even count the separate building/wards for HIV/AIDS patients or TB patients. Dr. Martin went to the medical school, Makere, that is affiliated with the hospital, so he was an excellent tour guide. We visited the pediatric, men's, women's, and geriatric wards, ICU, surgical ward, burn ward, ear nose and throat ward, the cancer ward, and the casualty ward (or emergency room, odd name huh?).

After a good deal of time walking around the hospital, Dr. Martin took me over to the  medical school and showed me around his old stopping grounds. We walked through some of the lecture halls, lab rooms, the pathology lab, and the cadaver dissection room (with three cadavers we "peeked at").

So my overall impression of both places were definitely a lot different than I would have expected. As far as the school goes, I guess I didn't have any expectations but it was pretty nice considering. Then for the hospital, its safe to say I won't complain about anything in the American health care system ever again. Ever. I kinda wish that I could have taken pictures, because words can't really describe some of the things I saw.

Happy Thanksgiving to all you back home. I'll miss the food. Oh, and the family too. Hahaha