Business......Chinese Style; Shanghai Dairies Continued

OK, dinner is over, it’s almost 8:00, guess what I get to do? Gather my computer bag up and walk back to the hotel. It’s only 2 blocks, but my legs feel like rubber bands and guess what I did? I wore a new pair of shoes…..Having a college education doesn’t mean anything sometimes……….

”J” (I’ll call my colleague “J” here for her privacy) walked back with me since she is staying in the same hotel; I am so glad she is here. She can give me CPR when I collapse. There isn’t much to say about what happened after I got back to the hotel. I fell asleep approximately 30 seconds after I hit the bed. That was probably 8:30.

Why is it that no matter how long you go without sleep, you cannot sleep an equal amount of time to make up for it? I awoke at 4:30 a.m. It was weird; I was on the same clock as when I travel from the East coast to the West coast. I always end up going to bed at around 8-9 West Coast time and getting up at 4:30-5:00 in the morning. It didn’t matter, I felt really good, but I knew it would only last until mid-afternoon. I had plenty of time to get up, get dressed, put my things away, (they were just thrown on the floor or in my suitcase……fatigue makes a slob out of the most fastidious), and write a bit. I tried to get my work priorities in place, but without being connected to the network, it left me without the tools I needed to get it together.

I didn’t eat any breakfast, but my stomach was recovering from the whole time and food thing. While your brain does a wonderful job of thinking, organizing, rationalizing, and understanding what you are doing, the rest of the body is out of the communication loop. It’s like a big organization that keeps its employees informed only as much as necessary. The message is “Do your work as normal, we will take care of any outside disturbances.” In the meantime, there is all this turmoil and stimuli that affect the ability to work normally. The stomach is trying to deal with new unfamiliar work and no training, the digestive system just makes it up as it goes along, and then there are the various systems that just go on strike………..like my leg muscles who have had a cushy job most of their life. Now they have to work harder, and they just don’t want to. I can just hear those little muscle cells saying. “That’s it!! I’m done!! She is being ridiculous with this forced overtime!”
Today is the day we go to the site and try to play nice with the persons who will be doing our work. I have to do an evaluation of the site and meet with the PI (principle investigator). I have been trying to learn the proper manners and protocol to deal with this. In business, I like to be direct. I like people to be direct with me. That way there is no mistaking what the expectations are. If I have a question, I will ask, I don’t care how dumb it sounds. There is nothing worse than beating around the bush. Here, however, I have to be careful not to offend anyone. It’s not that I am a person that will offend normally it’s just that it’s a cultural thing I guess. We went to the hospital and met with our expert………nothing like kissing some tushy. I got a whole history of the hospital and how it was related to the university and how the government is moving forward with guidelines on drugs and food. (Maybe the drugs part…….but you will never convince me that they have any control over the quality of food…………….any country that eats bull penis will say any food is OK.)

Now I get a tour (I am evaluating as I go) of the hospital and the clinical unit. First of all let me say that the nurses still wear caps. As a nurse, please……….they must not have any male nurses here. Can you just picture male nurses in caps? There are many that think nurses should go back to all white clothing with caps………..(my husband)………….I think they all have some kind of fantasy issue because then come the short skirts and garter belts to go with it.

Back to the tour: The hospital was built in 1936, and has some original architecture that is really cool. It is very traditional Chinese architecture with the turned up eves and such. However, I feel like I have stepped into a 1920’s horror movie with Dr. Frankenstein just around the corner. It’s not the technology or the medical capabilities that bother me, I am sure that they are quite capable and heaven knows they are intelligent and work hard, but the visuals around me are just plain scary. Patients are walking around inside and out in their convict style PJs and they don’t look very clean. Peeking up the halls into the “wards” (which I never got to see) it looks like something out of a war movie. Stark bare walls, dark hallways, people crammed together everywhere, and smells of cooking food permeate the halls and walkways. (Later I saw one of the sources of food. On the bottom floor outside there is a store and they are cooking something in a pot in front of the store. Mind you, this is still part of the hospital but it is in a breezeway that is open that connects one part of the hospital to another.) The city streets and the hospital seem to merge into one mass of humanity. We walked through to a new building (they were quite proud of the newness; it did look nice) that was the outpatient area. We were one floor up and could look over the whole floor beneath us. The outside wall is actually a huge window 2 stories tall and you can see outside on the sidewalks and inside to the outpatient area. I was astonished to see hundreds (really—there were hundreds) of people lined up against the windows an all over the downstairs. This was not an emergency room, but an outpatient clinic. One of my Chinese colleagues leaned over to me and said, “They are waiting to see a doctor.” Whaaaaaaa? how does that work? How many days do you have to wait? Do you take a number? I should have asked, but I was too dumbstruck to think of it. I felt so badly for them, I wanted to go down and help. At lease I could do some assessements...........Oh never mind, I don't speak Chinese. Doctors are not allowed to have private practices here (however, dentists may), so you can’t make an appointment to see a doctor. I asked if they have government insurance and the answer was “Some people do.” meaning those that work for the government, and not even all of them. I asked if business’s offer healthcare and the answer was “Some do, but it isn’t always very good.” Sounds familiar doesn’t it? We continue on. I still have the images of all of those people in my head. They were sick too…..coughing and hacking and laying around. People were waiting inside and outside sitting on the sidewalks, inpatients are walking around, stretchers are being pushed inside and outside people, people, and more people everywhere. (Do any of you remember the Star Trek [original Star Trek] episode where only Captain Kirk and one girl were on the Enterprise? She kept dancing around the ship not wanting to tell the capatin why she was there. She seemed to run from place to place and then at the end you see out of the window that people are jammed together all over the planet with no room? It was a 60's attempt to makes us aware of the population explosion. Anyway, that is what keeps coming to mind around here.)

A few feet away was the pharmacy; it was mobbed. It reminded me of the floor of the New York stock exchange, you know with people hollering and yelling and making motions with their hands that only other traders understand. You can buy drugs outside of the hospital, but then insurance doesn’t cover it (if you have it), but the price is the same.

We get on an elevator to go to the clinical lab. How many people can you fit on an elevator in China? Let’s just say it is a lot. I was standing there with my arms pinned down to my side crammed into the side of the elevator while more people attempted to get on. Now, I am a head taller than most everyone in there and if you have seen “Toy Story” I felt like Woody did when he fell into the toy machine.

We go to the clinical lab and again this is an outpatient area for clinical hematology, clinical chemistry, and urinalysis. I caught a glimpse of how they collect blood. They have about 10-15 windows like bank teller windows, except they are down low so you can sit. You stick your arm through the window and the phlebotomist on the other side takes your blood. I guess it is space saving and efficient. NEXT!!

So we go into the lab……………………..You come through one set of doors and then the lab is in the middle with another set of doors. That’s good, except the lab doors are wide open and samples are sitting everywhere. That wouldn’t be so bad except they are all without tops. So open samples are sitting open in the lab with the open lab doors. I am cringing. I am not going to complain about the lab set-up because that isn’t the focus……….but they are not even covered. EW!……….. What if someone slipped and fell and knocked a table over………… The same conditions where the urinalysis is done………………..open tubes of pee everywhere. Far be it from me to criticize.

Now back through the human mass to the study unit. It looks like a prison camp. Dark, dank, stark concrete walls and floors, 4 beds to a room. The rooms have little light and no room to move around. They are about the size of 4 and ½ beds. My big request here is please move the crash cart into the hall where you can at least get to it if you need it. It is well stocked.

The lab that will be processing the blood samples for the study is eerily quiet. It isn’t the hospital lab, but a separate lab for studies. It is lifeless and pretty bare. The essentials are there, but that is about it. The –70 freezer has me worried. They keep assuring me that it has plenty of room, but I just don’t buy it. It is all they have; I guess I am going to have to believe them for the moment.

Now that we have schmoozed, toured, and I have asked my questions, it is time for everyone to go to lunch……………..Everyone is going from both sides. This will be fun.