We were excited to have our first day with an agenda. We woke up early, got breakfast, packed our pockets with everything we needed for the day and headed out the door with our white coats and stethoscopes. If we didn't stand out enough already, we sure did this morning.
When we got to the hospital, we went to the administration area to meet the medical officer and go to the Ob/Gyn wards. We showed up and waited at her door for a little while since she wasn't there. After awhile, one of the nurses gestured to us that she wasn't here on Mondays. Oh, good to know. Neglected to mention that when we met and talked on friday. Hakuna matata... (yes, they actually say that here)
We decided to wander around a bit and see if we could figure out where things were and get oriented. After our first turn we got stopped by the chaplain who chatted us up for awhile and then asked us to come with them to the ward where he asked us to lay hands on a young woman and pray for her. Not a clue what he said, but he was very passionate!
We ended up shadowing Dr Lee for the day and got to hang out with him in the orthopedics clinic where we learned we're all a bit rusty on our anatomy... Good thing Lindsay brought some books along to brush up! Got to see some interesting things but so far nothing too crazy.... There was a young woman with some sort of congenital malformation where her pinky finger was curled up and attached to her hand and she wanted to have surgery before going to school but it was too soon before school started. Another guy that came in had been in an accident where a machine had sliced off all 4 fingers on his right hand and one of them had gotten infected in the healing process. Not really anything different than what we would do in the states... But there was one guy who had an open fracture of his tibia and since skin grafts don't heal well here due to high post-op infection rates, the wound was still open and healing very slowly. Pretty gnarly but amazing that it wasn't infected!!
After clinic, Dr Lee gave us a tour of the hospital and then took us to another great place for lunch. Also a tourist hot spot and we also found out that lots of people go there to dance every Thursday. I'm sure we'll check that out at some point before we leave, with escorts of course!
After lunch the hunt for a place to live was on. It was unfortunately a frustrating and fruitless search. We are safe and doing great at the hostel, but having our own kitchen and a place to do laundry would be nice.
For right now, we're ending the day watching world cup at the local foreigner pub watching world cup soccer with a kilimanjaro lager.... Life is good :)
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