My third week has gone by incredibly fast. This week, the Minister of Health from Tegucigalpa, Dr. Jenny Meza, visited the RVPC. Along with her came Dr. Cibeles (Epidemiologist), Dr. Cruz (the director of the Hospital), and Lic. Galindo (Chief manager of the Hospital). Although they stopped by for only a few minutes, there was enough time to capture a picture of them with Dr. Welcome, Dr. Rhee and Dr. Dunlop.
There were also several memorable cases this week at clinic. A little boy came in with what seemed like an abscess of pus inside his mouth. He was referred to the dentist here at the Public Hospital, but the dentist claimed that he tried to drain it and there was no liquid inside. Dr. Dunlop gave the little boy’s mother a prescription for antibiotics, and instructed her to return with her son to the clinic in a few days if there was no improvement. They returned a few days later, and it turns out the antibiotics had not helped. Dr. Welcome made a referral for them to travel to Tegucigalpa, where a different doctor could examine the hard palate mass. Dr. Rhee referred a different patient, a 10-month-old baby, to La Ceiba due to the baby’s delayed development. Dr. Rhee explained that among other things, the baby girl could not sit up on her own, something that a 10-month-old should be able to do. The most common diagnoses this week were fever, viral syndrome, diarrhea, impetigo and possible parasites. A mother brought her month-old baby, saying that she had been not been able to feed the baby milk the past three days because of the diarrhea that it caused. Instead, she had been feeding the baby ground rice mixed with water. Dr. Rhee stressed that the baby needs to be fed milk, not rice and water. After examining the baby, Dr. Rhee provided the mother with a different type of formula, Similac, to feed the baby. One day this week, Dr. Dunlop allowed me to do a urinalysis with his help. I accompanied Dr. Welcome, Dr. Rhee and Dr. Dunlop to hear a conference about brain lesions and hemorrhages. Dr. Welcome and I have also been planning on giving a talk to parents on the psychosocial development of teenagers.
Aside from clinic, I’ve continued to teach English. New volunteers at Peggy’s clinic also arrived this week: David, a pre-med student from Canada, and Igor, a fourth-year medical student at Vanderbilt. We all went to the crab races this week, dinner in West End, and I went to West Bay Beach yesterday. We are finally starting our scuba diving certification tomorrow!
