Sierra Leone 2025

It was our last full day of fieldwork, so we spent the morning trying to wrap up anything that was still unfinished before we started writing our paper. Once we settled in at the office and looked over everything, we realized we could really use a few more interviews with primary healthcare workers. While the […]

Recharged from our day at the beach, we were ready to finish strong. We had arranged to meet with a contact at Masanga, but with the amount of transcriptions we needed to complete, we thought it best to split up. Will, Sarah, and Dr. Cheng went over to Masanga, while River, Prashant and Vedanth stayed […]

Today was beach day, but for SicklED we still had business to take care of. We got up bright and early and left for Freetown by 6 a.m. so we could make it to our 9 a.m. meeting with the Sickle Cell Society. Mammoud, our driver and the GOAT, got us there ahead of schedule. […]

SicklED had another early morning, this time we were waking up for a 2 and a half hour drive to Kono in the east. We were meeting with Dr. Remy from PIH at Kono Government Hospital. PIH has been a great help to us in our educational material front and we were meeting with Dr. […]

Today, thanks to River, we had a later start to the day. We left the office at 10 am today. Sarah, Will, and River worked on our CME because we wanted to send it to Dr. Joan Shepard as soon as possible. For a change of scenery, we worked on the balcony on the second […]

There is a little under a week left to go in fieldwork and much more still needed to be done. The most pressing matter was to get our interviews done for our paper. At dinner last night, Prashant was tasked with bringing food to be delivered the next day at Loretto. Seeing as we haven’t […]

Another day meant another early morning for the SicklED team. By 8 a.m. we were already on the move, heading to Magbenteh Hospital for a hospital-wide meeting where we had been invited to give a presentation on sickle cell disease. The conference room quickly filled with doctors, nurses, and other healthcare staff, around 20 to […]

We’re up before the sun today, leaving Makeni at 6:30 a.m. for the three-hour drive to Freetown. The roads are busy but calm, lined with small market stalls just beginning to open for the day. We sip on water, watch the scenery shift from villages to city, and mentally prepare for a day packed with […]

The day began with breakfast, where we noticed Sarah’s right eye was red and she was wearing a black glass. Professor Cheng reminded us to complete the tasks assigned yesterday as soon as possible. With clear priorities set, we headed to the office ready to work at full speed.  Prashant faced a tight deadline to […]