Friday, June 17, 2011

Rule number 5: When there are leftovers…take them

We are getting to that point in our trip where we can predict meals based on the day of the week. We have cycled through all of the food options at least twice now. It was hard for some of us to bring down enough snacks for 7 weeks so when meal time comes around we are hungry. For instance, last night we had ground mystery meat with pasta. The equivalent of American chopped suey. Not only did we grab seconds but also took a piece of bread for the road for an after dinner Nutella or Peanut butter sandwich.

This week a general surgical team Hartford, CT was down so we all had an opportunity to view some procedures. We saw everything from an inguinal hernia repair to a bilateral mastectomy. Most of us also had an opportunity to also observe a c-section. All of the doctors we have shadowed so far have been very helpful in explaining the procedures so we are not lost in the OR.

In addition, we made trips to two villages this week (Thibeau and Carrefour des peres) on Tuesday and Thursday to shadow the community health workers in the field. We wanted to get an idea of what they do on a daily basis to strengthen our training sessions. We met the community health workers at their local dispensary (a small clinic), where they work under community health nurses. In both of the villages we were very impressed by the advice that the community health workers were giving to the locals about cholera, malaria, and hygiene to name a few. They recommended that some of the locals seek medical attention at the hospital for Tinea capitis, a very common fungal infection on the scalp, and for TB. In Thibeau, when we were waiting for our car to pick us up we waited by a school. The children were let out for recess and all wanted their pictures taken…you can see for yourself how popular we were...(pictures will be loaded soon)

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