A Week (or 3) in the Life of Field Work

The challenge – or perhaps the beauty – of working “in the field” is that no two days are like. Some days are filled with activity, as we travel around to different to different health facilities to interact with community health workers at the site level. Some days are, well, uneventful (unless you count all the social media that I’m able to catch up on). The last few weeks have been no exception.

Two weeks ago, I assisted with a community health worker (CHW) training for 25 new CHWs. Although my Chichewa is still lagging, I was able to supervise the monitoring and evaluation components of the training. One workshop that proved challenging for many of the CHWs was the transfer of information from a case study into the logbooks that data is to be recorded in. This activity is crucial because it will impact the quality of information collected and later used to measure programmatic success.

Last week, I attended Malawi’s 2010/2011 National AIDS Commission (NAC) Annual Review Meeting, which was an enlightening two day conference on Malawi’s national HIV achievements and challenges. Through this interaction, I learned so much about Malawi’s national HIV/AIDS strategy from the major players themselves. I met several interesting individuals involved in the fight against HIV, from NAC officials to consultants, human rights specialists to public health professionals, doctors and business people alike. Having worked with Senegal’s National AIDS agency a few years ago, it was interesting to gain a first-hand perspective of another country’s national response to HIV.

NAC Meeting Day 1

NAC Meeting Display

A skit is performed by a local theatre troop, describing the importance of multisectoral collaboration (a not-so-discrete message to leaders)

Minister of Information Patricia Kaliati receives a donated Land Rover from NAC to use in community HIV sensitization campaign

This week’s excitement involved one day in the field, where I visited three different health facilities to observe and evaluate current data collection and quality. One site had superb data in all six tools that we evaluated; another site revealed a need for more constant supervision and support. CHWs also expressed different challenges they faced, including partnership with the health facility, client volume, and HIV test kit and drug shortages (two serious problems in the response to HIV in Malawi).

The other challenge – or beauty – of this line of work is that schedules are often unpredictable. My attempts over the last 19 years of school to follow a schedule have been put aside, as instead I aspire to learn the art of patience and flexibility. One has to be prepared to attend a meeting with 10 minutes notice, or to spend three days waiting to hear what task is next. I'm not sure what's planned for next week, but it is sure to be another adventure.


Also posted at: http://scoutbanana.org/health-in-africa/from-the-field-a-week-in-the-life/