Work at the hospital

Hello! It has been difficult to catch up on blogging because when there is electricity it is usually either the middle of the night or when I am at the hospital. Kathy told me that the electricity is probably going to go off soon so this will not be written as well as I would like :)

BTW I forgot to mention for those who don't know that Sister Kathy McCarty is the head nurse and matron here at Chidamoyo, basically one of the big bosses and she is awesome.

I have now spent 3 full days at the hospital and it has been the most amazing experience of my life. A normal days schedule at the hospital goes like this:
6:30 am I eat breakfast with Sister McCarty and Dr. Kellert (and any other guests here)
7:00 we go to the hospital (close up the dirt road)
7:30 am Devotions (prayers, some beautiful singing in Shona)
8:00 am start the days work
10:30 am Tea
1-2pm Lunch (go to Kathy's to eat- she has a chef and she cooks so there is always great food!)
4-5 pm end of the day


On my first day at the hospital (Wednesday) there was an Antenatal Clinic at the hospital. This is where they give pregnant women information about pregnancy and other health factors. I took the blood pressure of about 50 women in a row. They are weighed, have their BP taken and other important information written down for their pregnancy. I was slightly nervous at first because there were so many women waiting for me and there was only 1 BP cuff but it went well and I finally finished them all. It is amazing how patiently people will wait for hours for medical care here.

After that I went and saw patients with Dr. Kajese. He has been great with letting me sit in on his examinations and explaining to me what is going on (most people speak the language Shona here and not as much English because we are so rural here). Today he showed me how to look at xrays of TB patients and see that they have it from examining their lung xrays. Dr. Kajese sits in the exam room and one patient after another comes in. He writes what is wrong in a notebook that they carry around- quite different than the computer charting that we have at the hospitals in Boston! Sometimes the notebooks are torn and covered in dirt. He also examined a man with an enlarged prostate today and showed me everything on the ultrasound machine (looks slightly out of place in the exam room, but fantastic that they have this machine).

Yesterday (Thursday) there was a Well-Baby clinic at the hospital. Again women were lined up with their babies to get them weighed and vaccinated. With one of the nurses that works at the hospital we again saw around 50 patients. We gave them vaccines for various things such as measles and polio. Let's just say after 50 vaccinations I have never made so many children scream and cry and I am very much improved at giving injections.
On Thursdays they also take CD4 counts for HIV/AIDS patients to see how they are doing on the medication. I was taught to take blood from the patients' veins and put it in the tubes to be tested. Turns out the hardest part for me was tying the tourniquet (idk how to spell it). I could not seem to get it tight enough! There will be lots of practice for me over the next 5 weeks though.
Thursday was a very busy day. I also saw Dr. Kellert (the OB/GYN doc now working here originally from California) do eversion on a women (turn the baby from breech position using her hands on the outside of the stomach). This was the first time I had ever seen this and she was successful! I also happened to walk into the Labor and Delivery room and there were two nurses there with a patient. I asked if she was going to have the baby soon and I saw my answer- the baby's head was crowning! The woman was not on any pain meds and yet she was not making a sound. There were just two nurses quietly standing with her. Everyone was so much calmer than my experience at Mass Gen. There were no monitors on the baby or anything. The woman had the baby and it was weighed, dried off and placed on the bed next to her. Then the nurse sewed up her laceration! It was amzing because at home the doctor would have done this but here it is the nurses job to deliver the baby. Then the mom stood up and got in a wheelchair and went to the next room! I personally was starting to panic because I had never seen anything like it- everyone was so calm and I was getting worried that too many contractions had passed and the baby had still not come out even though it had been crowning. I have a lot to learn here.