hospital week 1

The week has gone so fast! We started placement on monday - but spent most of the day introducing ourselves to various doctors, administrators and other members of the clinical team. We are based on the medical wards just now, one male and one female. If i had not experienced wards in Ghana, it would have been a huge shock walking in there - seeing the difference between ninewells and here. the difference now is that i have a bit more knowledge to understand just now sick these patients are when they come in - most of them coming in with a decreased concious level.

The ward is very basic, and investigations a bit scarce, but there does seem to be a relatively high level of staff around - from nursing students, through to clinical officers(about level of our junior doctors but they stay at this level.) to a variety of doctors from malawi and around the world. we are still finding our feet, so will go into more detail about the state of the ward etc later.

We are undertaking quite a large audit of patients taking antiretroviral drugs and their complications, which is really interesting and is giving us an actual job to do. we also do wards and are beginning to help with procedures. Communication with patients is a bit tricky as the majority do not speak any english..we are hoping to involve some keen nursing students to be our translators.

We have been asked to organise a clinical meeting/presentation next friday to introduce ourselves and explain our reasons for being here and what our role will be, as well as have discussions about what we are going to spend our money on. Its quite a daunting task - need to provide lunch for eeryone too.

This morning we attended an albino awareness day - which turned out to be really interesting, there is huge stigma and weird beliefs regarding albinism here, and recently in tanzania there was a spout of killings in this group. They have severe problems here in the sun and today they were teaching parents to cover up kids, use sunscreen and hats etc as well as attending clinic. there are only 7 clinical officers who specialise in dermatology for the qhole country and currently there is one dermatologist here from america but she is not here forever.

on top of all that we have been out nearly every night this week - so tired so heading to the beach for weekend. Last night the caretaker, took us all out as a thankyou for me bringing him a kilt from scotland - photos to follow!

hope everyone is well, my number is 002659060654, feel free to text/call. becky xxxx