8 July – 14 July 2008
For the past 3 working days, Dr Gross, Dr. Laura, and I have been working at the hospital without Dr. Prado, who went away to a medical conference in Tegucigalpa. There were a few requests from patients that the three of us weren't quite sure how to handle, mostly because we didn't know how the hospital system worked. One poor woman who had arrived at 6am was made to visit three or four different departments, wait for hours, and finally told that there was no medication available for what her baby was sick with (rotavirus). I'd guess that she was probably there for about 6 hours total. Over my time here, I've discovered that it's a bit frustrating to work within a system that has such poor communication and organizational skills. I've also noticed this lack of organization within the patient files. For instance, there's no permanent record of past histories and medicines administered. Whatever happens to be in the patients file (a literal manila file folder) is it. I think a defined system would greatly improve efficiency and quality.
Along with triaging patients, I've been learning loads both from shadowing Dr. Gross and Dr. Laura and from other volunteers. Today for instance, I got to listen to a child's chest that was sick with pneumonia. I happened to know what to do because yesterday, another volunteer had taught me what to listen for, where to press the stethoscope, and how to interpret what I heard. It was really exciting to put that knowledge to work in clinical practice. In addition, Dr. Gross often has me translate for him, and is great at explaining different tests to me. Today he did a full examination of a child that was born at 27 weeks – very prematurely. He explained the various stages of child development and about the different tests that one might to do look for certain milestones. In the middle of the examination, both Dr. Laura and Dr. Prado popped in to take a look. It was great to hear them bouncing ideas off of each other and consulting. Each have varied specialties of knowledge and I appreciate their willingness to be flexible with their diagnoses.
The new Global Healing volunteer, Mia, arrived on Sunday. Peggy and I picked her up from the airport along with another volunteer named Sean. I'll start her orientation on Wednesday so she can get three good days in at the hospital before she's on her own. The new doctors are certainly looking forward to meeting her and I think it'll be a great transition. I can't believe it's my last week working for the hospital! I'll be on the island for a couple more weeks, volunteering with Peggy's clinic, but it definitely seems that time has flown by far faster than expected.
