Here is an outline of a typical day...6:15am - wake up!
7:15am - drive to the University of Malawi for morning meeting
Morning meeting is a time for all of the medical students, residents and physicians to come together and discuss all of the "special case" patients that were seen at the hospital during the previous day/night. The residents present each case to the group, and as a whole, we discuss the outcome or best treatment for the patients.
9:00am - cross the street to Kamuzu Center Hospital and begin rounds!
The surgery wards are divided into the male ward (floor IA) and female ward (floor IIIA); During rounds, the physician (Dr. Melanie) will see each of her patients (yesterday she had almost 20!) at their bedside and review their charts and any test results that were aquired the day before; then Dr. Melanie informs or directs the nursing staff (which we call the "sisters") how to care for the patient. What is interesting, is the fact that they don't use computers to record the patient's history - it is all written by hand. Each patient has a little yellow or blue book which they carry with them where ever they go that has all of the doctor's notes or comments written in it.
12:00pm - lunch break!
The local women cook traditional Malawian food for lunch! It costs about 300 kwacha for a plate, which is about $1.00, and a soda costs 150 kwacha. The meal usually consists of white rice, hard grits, meat and vegetables.
1:00pm - surgery begins!
Interestingly, the operating room is called the Theater, which has 4 operating rooms. To enter the theater, we must wear scrubs, boots, hair net, face mask, and gloves. Over this past week, I have seen about 6 surgeries; some were: an exploratory laparotomy (they had to cut out some of the patient's small intestine because it was damaged by a knife stab), removal of a breast tumor, hysterectomy (removal of the uterus), and a bladder repair on a 13 day old baby boy.
Dr. John Samuels (general surgeon) in green - lived in Malawi for 2 years
Dr. Melanie Sion (surgeon fellow) in blue - working here with UNC Project Malawi for 1 year
Surgeries usually end around 5pm (on Wednesday they ended at 8:30!), then we go home for dinner. Dr. Shores has certainly made us feel right at home - cooking steak, curry vegetables, and spaghetti some of the previous nights.
Until next time!
Very cool Erin. How do the surgeries there differ from those in the US? Is the equipment updated or limited in supply? Is the nursing staff much like those here?
ReplyDeleteAunt Tammy