April 30th 2010 - Our Muslim brothers

Being far from my family since 8 days today (and two more to come) makes me a bit homesick, so I’m writing this post with an eye to the Skype icon waiting for my wife to connect so I can say hallo to her and the kids at home.

Today is holiday in the middle east, so I don’t have hospital visits or other business related news to tell, but the day was interesting anyhow. Do you remember the polenta I taught Majid to cook yesterday night? Well, today we grilled it with meat, chicken and salmon in the backyard of Majid’s house! It has been a lovely day with his family and friends of AHCSC; in fact Hosam, the AHCSC general manager, picked me up at the hotel and we spent a pleasant day together. To continue my cultural mission from Friuli (the north east region of Italy I live in), I also prepared the “frico”, that is the most typical dish of the region, very simple (just boiled potatoes and cheese cooked in a frying pan until it gests crispy outside and soft inside) but really delicious, and my Arabian friends appreciated a lot!



AHCSC top management making the grill - note the toasting polenta

Me proudly cooking the "frico" in Saudi Arabia

All together in Majid's living room

During the day I discuss with Majid and Hosam of the cultural and religious peculiarities of their Country, and they give me more insights into the culture of the Muslim world and of their religion in particular. I can summarize just a few of the most remarkable teachings they explained me as inherently present in their religion, and I feel very fortunate to have had a first-hand non-stereotypal view of this world that seems so well known (from the distorting reports of the media most of all) but has a richness I would not have expected before coming here:

- Treating the other people as you would be treated yourself (as an example Majid told me of when in his previous company he made change all the cars of the employees with new models equipped with air conditioning, just after he had experienced on himself how painful it was driving in those conditions – a 1M$ non required expense indeed)

- Brotherhood of all people (one of the side effects of praying together five times a day with all colleagues in the company is the experience of equal dignity and respect between all of them; moreover, interrupting your business activities because it’s time to pray, reminds you of what really matters in life and where all our fortunes come from)

- Particular care of the poor and unfortunate (would you imagine that here they have no gorvernmental taxation for individuals, but according to their religion – Zakat or alms giving - they have to willingly give to the poor and needy 2,5% of their yearly excess savings; in general taxes are only levied on excess wealth and not on income)

- Consciousness of the unavoidable arrival of death (Hosam told me that they have a very effective expression for this, that says that death is not chasing you, so that you may be tempted to try and escape, but we’ll encounter it coming towards us in the middle of the way)

- Respect for all life forms (we were talking of domestic pets and the responsibility they bring to take care of them, and Majid told me how in a famous story, a woman was doomed to Hell after she kept a cat till it starved to death)

- Consciousness of the common roots of the three monotheistic religions and respect for the Prophets (Jesus Christ being one of the most important Prophets for the Muslims)

Majid tells me that he’s so sorry that many Muslims themselves don’t know, understand or apply the principles he explained me, and they just mechanically apply the exterior forms of the religious practice; this leds to many problems and misunderstandings between our cultures and religions, and makes lots of people subject to easy manipulation, as we can easily see.

I love my religion and I’m proud to be Christian (my religion having inside all of the above principles, and the universal message of loving each other that Jesus brought to the mankind); however, from these days on I take with me a better understanding and an unbiased respect for our brothers under the unique God that created and rules all of us.

April 29th 2010 - 6sigma and Saudi polenta

Todays it's half holiday in KSA (as for our saturday), but the program at AHCSC offices is intense and exciting. They are waiting for the visit of the Singapore six-sigma consultant that is supporting the company in the deployment of their six-sigma system, that has started with the training of some employees and is continuing with the optimization of a series of internal processes.

The whole morning is spent in preparation for the visit: Majid is leading one of the projects that is to be reviewed today, so we work on filling the typical six-sigma documents. I have double interest in attending these meetings: on the one hand I have learned of lean six-sigma from books and publications but never had the occasion of a first hand experience with the metodologies involved into its deployment. On the other hand, I get to know that the process we are working on today is about the optimization of the delivery of products from the AHCSC international suppliers to the customers in Saudi Arabia; one of the main issues that we have learned as a critical one during the visit in KSA is the difficult delivery of spare parts to fix equipment in the Kingdom (mainly due to the specific custom clearance regulations in this Country), so I take advantage of the situation and ask a lot of questions to get more insights into this issue.

We have Burger King lunch in the meeting room while we continue discussing of Voice of the Customer, DMAIC, Pareto charts, ... At 2.30pm the Singapore consultant arrives. He's an elegant man with experience with the Motorola six-sigma system; in the specific terminology they use he's a black belt and his knowledge and focus capability is impressive. During a break of the meeting (due to one of the 5 prayer moments of the day) I intrduce myself and the TBS activities to him and we discuss of how lean six sigma in manufacturing is different from its applications in service companies. The subject may be boring for the vast majority of the people, but I find it fascinating and effective.

At the end of the day at AHCSC I go shopping with Majid; he's got to buy things for his home and we decide that I have to show him some specialities of the italian cooking. I select two representative dishes: the "frico" and the "polenta". We buy potatoes and cheese for the frico, and we also find the corn flour to make a perfect polenta. The frico will be the guest star for the barbecue he's organizing for tomorrow (friday is the holiday here as sunday is for us), but the polenta will be immediately prepared! We go to his home where I meet his wife and one of his cute kids, and I teach him how to prepare the polenta. They are lovely people and I take advantage of the time we spend together to ask them about the way people live in Saudi Arabia, their religion, their culture and the way they compare to the lifestyle in other countries: I feel fortunate to have met people like them, they're really deep and avaliable to discuss. You rarely find this and I feel thankful and enriched.

Majid preparing the polenta!

Amazing polenta in Riyadh!

I'm sure that other people from Friuli have been in Riyadh in the past, but I don't think that many of them may have prepared a real polenta here ...

April 28th 2010 late night - Back in Riyadh

Back at the Holiday Inn in Riyadh I'm going to sleep 'cause it's so much late, but before that I briefly post continuing from where we had arrived in the previous episode ...

After the fried chicken experience at Al baik, we take Brian to the Airport (he's continuing the journey to the Emirates) and the rest of us goes to the Jeddah AHCSC offices with Khaild; his office is beautiful, with a large wood desk, a leather sofa and, most of all, a Nespresso coffee machine. We can’t resist and take a good espresso (and least me and Roberto, while Youssef prefers a turkish coffee) and then we take a picture with some of the AHCSC-OLAYAN team in Jeddah.



We then go to the last appointment of this intense 5 days of hospital visits, and meet the Deputy Director of the Dr. Bakhsh Hospitals Group; Rania Bakhsh, the doughter of the founder, pays great attention to our presentation and the conversation with her and the Chief of Medical Staff is very positive.

The trip is almost over; on our way to the airport Youssef drives the rented car to the rental shop and has some difficulties with the automatic gear (and also because the car is so huge you almost need and interphono to talk to the guys in the last row) and then Khalid, who’s driving an amazing white Lexus, takes us to see some typical shops in the old city of Jeddah and we take a last couple of pictures. In the last picture there’s only one of the guys still wearing tie and jacket: guess who’s going home and who’s to stay some more days in KSA?







Before getting on board again, I tell Khalid of bananas, nuns and other strange train characters (see posts before …) and then the team finally divides: I get to the national flights terminal and say goodbye to Roberto and Youssef. We’re looking forward to possibly see Khalid in Italy, but I guess we’ll be back in Jeddah sooner than that. And now the adventure is due to continue in Riyadh … with the people you learnt to know (Majid and his colleagues) and some more to come!

PS: As I started the Internet connection I immediately went to corriere.it and see the result of the return match Barcellona-Inter. The more you're far from Italy, the more your national pride rises! Sorry for the friends at TBS ES ...

April 28th 2010 - Internet available!!

I was not sure to find an internet connection today, but here it is ... an open WiFi and we're surfing the net! I take advantage of this to post a few pictures we have taken today in Jeddah. Enjoy ... and get back in touch from Riyadh!

Surroundings of Jeddah: a nice villa

Boats "parked" in the middle of the desert

Surroundings of Jeddah: ship shaped mall

Surroundings of Jeddah: street lamps

Biomedical engineering department at King Abdul Aziz University Hospital

The TBS team with Khalid and the director of Biomedical engineering at KAAUH

The TBS team entering Dr. Soliman Fakeeh Hospital

With the head of Biomedical Department at Dr. Soliman Fakeeh Hospital

Entering the mythical Al Baik fried chicken Jeddah fast food

The team saves reimboursement of expenses money eating cheap!

April 28th 2010 tomorrow - Day 5 in KSA (last ... for some of us)

So, tomorrow is the last day in KSA for the main part of the TBS team visiting the Country. After our last scheduled meetings, Brian is leaving for the Emirates in the afternoon, while Roberto and Youssef will take the 00:20 flight for Paris and then home; more or less at the same time I'll take my internal flight and go back to Riyadh. Since we'll be leaving the hotel in the morning after breakfast, and will be around the city all day long until getting to the airport in the evening, I think I won't be able to post tomorrow, so here are a few notes at the end of our presence in Jeddah.

The city here is a lot more lively than Riyadh, especially at night. We went to a beautiful libanese restaurant with Marty and Jeff of RTKL and then left for a ride around the city with Khalid; the city is really beautiful, of a beauty I could not see during the hot day. It really changes its face, with the all-bright signs of the shops and restaurants, the nice front of the houses and some amazing monuments and attractions. The one that most impressed us was the King Fahd's Fountain, that is the highest fountain in the world, shooting water at an height of 312 meters!

So, I'm going to spend a couple of days in this Country without my TBS soulmates, but my new Saudi friends prepared a couple of interesting days for me while I'll be waiting for the eHealth conference next sunday, so I have to thank them and Majid in particular. With him I'll attend the 6-sigma survey at his company, we'll have a holyday with his friends (on friday, being thursday-friday the weekend for Saudi) and follow up with a couple of the hospitals we visited in the last days. He's a great guy, both nice, funny and deep.

I have learned a lot in these days in KSA both from the professional and the cultural point of view, and I'll post more about this side of the trip in the next posts, so stay tuned for the next posts from Riyadh, and for more flavour from the middle east!

April 27th 2010 - Day 4 in KSA: Stefano feeling sick, team around Jeddah

Waking up this morning was really hard: headache, nausea, ... I guess I was victim of withdrawal symptoms from the total lack of alchool since last friday (or may it have been the japanese sushi, or maybe too much blogging and to less sleeping ...). Anyway, I woke up, had a shower and reached Khalid at the lobby; Khalid will be our guide in Jeddah for the next two days and he prepared our schedule around the hospitals of the city. I'm definitely not at my best and decide that I won't join the team for the morning, so I have to rely on what they told me to update our followers with the latest news from Saudi.

The first stage is at the opening of the Saudi Critical Care Society conference; since the speakers speak arabian, the most remarkable element the team reported from the experience is the high quality of mango fruit juice.



After this the team has an interlocutory meeting at the King Fahad Military Hospital followed by two really good meetings: one at the local offices of the Ministry of Health, and one at the Saudi German Hospitals. When Brian, Roberto and Youssef get back to the hotel I'm feeling much better and can join them to discuss about these days in KSA and write a draft of the daily report with all notes and impressions from the hospitals we visited (the report is slightly different from what you can read in this blog: two complementary tales of the same working trip experience).

Tonight we'll meet again with the guys of RTKL and continue our discussions on technology assessment and planning, Ferrari, strange transplant interventions, etc.

I leave you with a sight of Jeddah at sunset taken from the 16th floor of the hotel (click on it to see it larger); I can't already say much about the city, but I feel this place is really different from what I used to know. Tonight Khalid is taking us around the city; I'm not sure I'll post again (if I don't take a long sleep tonight I fear tomorrow morning I'll be again out of order), but I promise I'll soon give you further insights into this city sitting on the Red Sea.

April 26th 2010 – Day 3 in KSA: team in Jeddah

This first picture will probably mean nothing to non Italian people, but when Roberto noticed the arab newspaper with the “La Gazzetta dello Sport” headline we had a sudden nostalgic feeling. I don’t know why Roberto was reading a newspaper entirely written in Arabic (maybe he’s practicing for the next travels in Saudi), but it was simply amazing finding this headline in the familiar font that is capable of unify our people more than the national anthem. For the non Italian guys and gals, I will steal a couple of sentences from Wikipedia, just a bit adjusted, to give you the feel of what La Gazzetta dello Sport means to us. La Gazzetta dello Sport is an Italian newspaper dedicated to coverage of various sports; the newspaper, published on distinctive pink paper, sells over 400,000 copies daily (more on Mondays when readers want to catch up on the weekend's events), and can claim a readership in excess of three million (thus it is by far the Italian newspaper with the largest number of readers). The Giro d’Italia (the second most important long distance road bicycle racing stage race for professional cyclists in the world after the Tour de France) was invented by the editor of the pink newspaper at the beginning of last century (1909), pink being the color of the shirt that the leader of the general classification in the Giro wears during the race ... for more info go to www.gazzetta.it

But lets’s go back to the chronicle of our journey; today we’re to leave Riyadh, so we check out at the Holiday Inn , load our luggages in the GMC car and go for our last meeting in this city. The Security Forces Hospital (from the hospital naming algorithm I described in the previous post I guess “Security Forces” must have been the name of some freakish king of the past, but I’m not sure) is a very big hospital, but our meeting with the head of the engineering department doesn’t seem to open interesting opportunities and the part of the meeting that deserves more good memories is the instant coffee we are offered in paper cups …

We are almost ready to go to the airport, but Majid (you can see him making one of the tons of phone calls he had to do in these days to keep us on track with the planned schedule) has a Steve-Jobs-like “and one more thing” surprise for us: we are waited at the Dr Sulaiman Al Habib private hospital, where the responsible of purchasing is more than welcoming and he expresses all his interest into our activities and possible services to his hospital. The karma is good with TBS today, so we happily say goodbye to Majid (in fact I’ll be back here Wednesday night, so we’ll have more time together very soon) and reach the airport.



At the airport I finally get into an electronics store where I hope to find a CompactFlash card to finally replace the one I burned yesterday, but they don’t sell it. Since I’m angry enough with my old camera (that holds inside its internal memory a couple of nice pictures I can’t extract because of the broken card), I decide to buy a brand new camera! I perform a fast Imaging Technology Assessment and buy a powerful Sony Cyber-shot 14Mpixel camera; I get an amazing 0% discount on the price (you can see me pathetically trying to bargain with the two Arabian clerks) and I happily start taking hi resolution fancy pictures (and I also got its user manual as an interesting reading for the flight …)

During the flight from Riyadh to Jeddah (850 km we’re going to cover in 1 hour and a half) I and Youssef are still active and keep working all time long ;-) while Roberto and another person-I-will-not-mention switch themselves off much like the battery of my old camera. The person-I-will-not-mention somehow lets me know that he wouldn’t appreciate his sleepy picture to be published, so I have disguised it to safeguard his anonymity …




While we’re waiting to take off, I notice that a display is showing the shape of the airplane with an arrow starting from its center and pointing up to the right like a vector; it’s showing the direction to Mecca, in order to address the muslims praying on board. Another sign of the pervasive importance of religion is evident when the speaker invites the faithful to pray for a good flight, and Youssef explains me that for the muslims there it’s common to pray addressing specific moments of the day or events and actions you’re going to do.

When we arrive in Jeddah, we find our Budget-rent-a-car driver waiting for us; he’s from Bangladesh and he doesn’t understand English at all! Youssef tries talking with him in Arabic but the communication is very difficult; I try with some words in friulanian but he doesn’t seem to understand. At the end we manage to get to the right hotel; since tomorrow we’ll have to go up and down Jeddah for our all-day-long meetings, we hope for the best, greet the who-knows-what-speaking driver and enter the Hotel. The Rosewood Corniche hotel is a really beautiful structure with view on the Red Sea; my room is at the 16th floor, so I try to forget feeling dizzy and take a couple of scenic pictures.





It’s been another long day, but we are very happy to meet Marty of RTKL and have dinner together at the hotel’s Japanese restaurant. Strange things happen while we talk of technology assessment and planning, new hospitals being built, nuns getting home in a Ferrari, bananas on the train … Roberto almost gets drunk with a mint tasting kind of soft drink (and he breaks the glass, which is somehow good wishing) while Brian convinces Youssef that wasabi is a sweet and delicate cream. We end the day in a relaxed atmosphere that is great for team building and for preparing us for tomorrow; we’ll have another full day of appointments (3 hospitals, a meeting at the local offices of the Ministry of Health, the inauguration of a conference on social critical care and a visit to the RTKL offices in Jeddah) and it’s better for all the team to go to sleep (I am switching myself off now …).

April 25th 2010 – Day 2 in KSA

In Italy today it's holyday and my wife took the children to the beach, but here in Saudi it's working day, so let's start a new day in Riyadh. One of our meetings is canceled, so we have a slightly lighter program today. To remember the names of the hospitals we have to go I always have to take my notes: today we go to King Fahad National Guard Hospital and to Kingdom Hospital; I try my best, but I really can't manage to remember the names of these hospitals!!! It seems that there's some kind of algorithm to name hospitals in this Country (at least the public ones)! For your convenience I'll resume it for you: take the name of a King you like and respect (let's assume it's X), choose one of "Medical", "University", "National Guard", "General" (we'll call this part Y), add a final "City" or "Hospital" (the Z part of the name) and compose your brand new hospital name as follows: "King X Y Z".
To confirm the validity of the algorithm, I'll recall a part of the list of appointments for the week:
King Fahad Medical City
King Khalid University Hospital
King Fahad National Guard Hospital
King Fahad General Hospital
King Abdulaziz University Hospital

I guess that the names of our hospitals in Itay and around Europe should sound strange to them as well ...

Clinical engineering at King Fahad National Guard Hospital is in the basement (I'd better say it's an additional loading ramp below the basement ...). You can see the enthusiastic expressions of Roberto and Youssef taking the now traditional picture in front of the entrance sign.


The meeting at KFNGH is just great! The director of the Clinical Engineering Services, Mr Al Shuail, is very welcoming and helpful; with his collaborator Mr Schawsmidth they give us a lot of suggestions for what services may be needed in Saudi and what specific needs their hospital has that we may help with. When we leave the hospital we have a feeling that we'll be back soon.

Than we go to Kingdom Hospital and we are immediately impressed by the architecture at the entrance (you can see Brian in front of the glazed wall, posing like a Hollywood hero ... or a russian drug traffiker, and Roberto that's much like a CIA agent, maybe spying the russian trafficker ...).



Inside, the hospital is covered with marble, so we have some expectations about the meeting location with the head of clinical engineering (who, we are informed, is a woman). Unfortunately the lady we're waiting for is home sick, so the appointment is canceled and we're ready for lunch.

To continue our discovery of the local traditional food, we go to Fuddruckers (www.fuddruckers.com), where we have the least healty meal of the trip (up to now ...).
On our way to the restaurant, we discover the competence of Majid in everything regarding the roots and meaning of Islam; he's telling us of the origin of the pilgrimage to Mecca recalling that it roots to Abraham going there following the will of God (and along the way throwing stones to the devil that was trying to convince him not to go). The intense story that Majid is so passionately telling us, recalls me of my personal struggle against the IT department to be authorized to keep using my Mac, and I start kidding with Majid and the other buddies saying that "the next time they'll tell me that I have to go for a PC I'll say that God told me to go for a Mac-ca, and if they'll insist I'll throw them stones ... and I will say that Majid told me to do so!"
Really surprising (to my ignorant ears) the origin of the 5 prayer moments that muslims have during the day: at the origin Muhammad said that they had to be 25, but Jesus (who he actually met, since the muslims think he didn't die) told him they were too much, so they somehow negotiate and at the end they go for 5; Majid is much more precise than me, but I hope I've been able reporting you at least a little of how amazing this story of Muhammad meeting Jesus and agreeing on the number of prayer moments in a day really is.

In the afternoon we have a couple of internal meetings at the AHCSC-OLAYAN offices, and then we go for dinner at a lebanese restaurant. There I give my best in telling jokes: by the way, do you know the joke of the banana eaten by a nun, a prostitute and a married woman ... well I can't really report it here, and it would not be so funny in words as it was with my acting performance (that fortunally Brian failed to record on the iPhone), but ... well it was a funny night! And the food was excellent: I like this eastern delicacies, even though I can't always understand what I'm going to eat. At the end we take a couple of coffees (we convince Brian that a cappuccino after noon is just immoral) and mint tea, and than we go back to the hotel.

Hey, hey, wait a minute ... I didn't mention the great news of the day: to my wife's upset (but not too much, thank you honey for understanding), I'll have to stay in KSA a few days more than planned for a conference on eHealth. This means that my Saudi report is to go on a little longer: continue following the blog, and leave comments!

April 24th 2010 – Pictures recovered!!!

You might have read the previous post, describing our first day in KSA, in which I had to report my frustration for the complete loss of all the pictures taken during the day. I finished the post, called home, switched off my mac and got ready to go to sleep full of anger for the precious material destroyed.
But I'm not the give-up and complain kind of person, and I have a profound faith on the infinite resources of the Internet (and the power of my MacBook Pro, also); so I switched it on again and started googling "compact flash recovery mac" and similar keywords, until I got into "Disk Doctors Photo Recovery" for Mac. Downloaded the demo version and .... magic! It was able to find all the files hidden in the card!! Now I just had to buy the full version (the benefit is worth the 65,48 € they charge for the software: God bless on-line shopping and credit cards), and there we are. All pictures again on the hard disk, ready to be uploaded ... for your advantage and our continuing fun and witness effort.


TBS and AHCSC-OLAYAN team ready to start the day.


Brian and Roberto entering the huge GMC rented car.


Roberto and Youssef in front of the Biomedical Engineering department at King Fahad Medical City.


Our team with the biomed managers at KFMC. Charming persons!


Visiting the biomed laboratory at KFMC.


Visiting the laboratory at AHCSC-OLAYAN headquarters.


Fire extinguishing system at Dallah Hospital.


The mosque inside the campus of King Khalid University Hospital.


Our team with the biomed managers at KKUH. Nice people!


Roberto and Youssef in front of the mosque at KKUH.


The team in the garden of the possible location for our new lab in KSA.


Majid, Brian and Hosam ready to go for dinner.


Youssef and Roberto fishing in the swimming pool.


Relaxing at the arab restaurant.


View of the beautiful arab restaurant.


Characteristic objects at the arab restaurant.


Rice and spices at the arab restaurant.


Stefano gets a hair cut at a barber shop in Saudi Arabia.