The Debriefing

First, I was called last night and told that there was a meeting to discuss the outbreaks of leptospirosis. I went to this meeting at the epidemiology center, and then went on to several other meetings at the hospital, joining up with a bunch of 6th year med students who are helping care for the ill and spread awareness and precautions. The purpose of these debriefings was to formulate a plan to deal with this outbreak. As people walked in, they exchanged handshakes, sat down in these little desks, took out their notebooks and began paying attention as the leaders went over the plan of attack. I couldn't help thinking about how much it reminded me of movies like Star Wars and Independence Day when all of the fighter pilots go to their final debriefing before attacking the bad guys. As accompaniment music, I even had the heroic-sounding Fox NFL theme song stuck in my head. On a more serious note, the med students and organizers are quite admirable for giving up their weekend to work hard on this urgent health project.
In this picture Dr. Peña, dean of the medical school, is giving some directions for how the relief effort will be organized.