First Surgery Day

6/10/14
Today was by far one of the longest/busiest days at the hospital so far.  In the morning we had an hour lecture on how doctors go about diagnosing patients and how to present a case.  After this, we went with Dr. Charles to the TB ward and discussed patient cases and were lectured on the 7 main opportunistic infections (which are commonly present in HIV patients).  Most of the doctors are really casual and not concerned about contracting TB themselves because it is not infections after the patients have undergone treatment for several days (just a note for any paranoid readers).  Then, Dr. Charles brought us to the morgue and we saw 3 bodies in the freezer... there were surprisingly few because most families bring patients home when they are malbound (nearing death) since it is cheaper... plus the morgue is more commonly used in the case where cause of death is unknown.

In the afternoon, we got out of internal medicine and walked over to the surgery building (which is very small and only has maybe 3 operating rooms) where we saw a huge femur fracture surgery.  The man had been in a motorcycle accident and the X-Ray showed a really bad break that needed serious realignment of the bone.  After taking plenty of photos and videos and observing the surgery, we watched a catheter replacement surgery since the first one was not done correctly and leaking urine into the abdomen.  The doctors who originally inserted it really screwed up.

By the time I got back to the house it was 4pm and at 6, we all had a global health lecture on HIV/aids, presented by Dr. Tatu.  After dinner I went on the night shift with 5 others and watched a C-section.  There were 4 other babies that had been born earlier in the day that were lying under the heating lamp and another 4.9kg baby who was in a cart because there was no room for him (he was massive... in the record book they literally wrote "big baby").  After this my friends and I were seriously worn out after working such a long day... tomorrow I plan on taking it much easier).