Life in the FAME OPD

So the last 4 days I have been working in the OPD ( Outpatient Department).The first few days I worked in Triage which I mentioned in my “Get To Work” post.

Yesterday I worked with RN Dainess in her kingdom, the procedure and injection rooms. She is very warm and friendly and willing to share and teach.

Her picture here looks very stern but she is not at all. She showed me all the supplies and how things work there. We saw several patients with very gnarly wounds that would be rare to see in the US and she very efficiently dressed their wounds as I assisted and observed. Let me tell you I was glad I was wearing a mask,,, as the odors were really something!. She took such kind and gentle care of them. One gentlemen, she had been doing dressing changes on for 4 months!

I the afternoon Dr Manjira, the surgeon, decided to do a ” minor procedure” to remove a cyst from a man’s neck . First of all, he was doing the procedure right near his carotid artery and I keep waiting for a geyser of blood, then he kept going deeper into the neck,,, it was warm in the room and he was having trouble removing the lesion and in my mind I had the mantra “I will not faint, I will not faint”..and then he asked me to put on some sterile gloves and assist and to put my finger into the guys neck and hold it… I tried best to soft focus/blur my eyes while not actually looking lame and looking away… that assist evidently was what allowed him to use both his hands and get the lesion out. Whew! While sewing up the very deep neck wound he was chatting with me about how I should go to this very wonderful hotspring area near Kilimanjaro, Kikuletwa Hotspring ( check it out!) which looks lovely but,since it is 4 + hours away, I will not be visiting it .

Today I worked in Diabetes and Hypertension clinic which was rather slow but allowed me to talk the the main MD for it , Dr Ansema, and learn their approach to care and the hurdles as well as see how the Electronic Medical record works.