1st day as doctors in africa!

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Raissa and I started our 1st day of work as doctors at Katatura State Hospital today. We were definately a nice mix of excited and nervous for starting. It is a large hospital (pics to come) and pediatrics is on the top floor, 8th. Dr. Brown is the only full time consultant (like attending pediatrician/specialist) in the WHOLE country! That is just amazing to consider. We arrived around 8am, and joined a conference of brand new interns. Internship in Namibia is 2 years, with only 4 months total of pediatrics! that is all the training they receive for peds. Dr. Brown runs lectures frequently during the week for them, and is the doc for the Gastro (GI) unit. After we met everyone, and they heard the intro talk from Dr. Brown, we went on a quick tour. The hospital is much larger than it looks. It is about 30-40 years old and a government hospital. patients come from near, and often large busloads come from far away. We were told today that Katatura means "the place you do not want to go." That about says it all. Apparently it is the biggest referral hospital in the country, but we were told
on the road from Katatura State Hospitalon the road from Katatura State Hospital
on the road from Katatura State Hospital
this means more like a "last resort" than a stronger medical facility (like in the US if you were to refer a patient to Geisinger from a small rural hospital...not the same). We saw the Prem unit (like our NICU) which had quite a few babies. They do not have ventilators for the premies, and do not intubate them. They do have 4-5 CPAP machines though, and friday we will get trained along with the interns on how to put them together. This is for the new interns because they will have to put them together alone at night when covering the peds units because they are alone. No attendings (consultants) or medical officers, they are from home unless they call them in. So, atleast in PICU and NICU we are spoiled having attendings in house. Anyway, we saw the POPD, which is the Pediatric Outpatient Department (like our acute care clinic, just a bit busier!). We will start work there tomorrow afternoon. Then we finished up back on 8th floor. Which has a gorgeous view of the mountains and Windhoek by the way. 8A ward is all of the children older than 2 years, and 8B is the children/infants
Studying after work on a gorgeous Namibian day!Studying after work on a gorgeous Namibian day!
Studying after work on a gorgeous Namibian day!
younger than 2 years. I started on B, Raissa started on A. She had a bit more of a learning experience in that her ward is overseen by Dr. Kaaya, who is a medical officer with a lot of pediatric experience! She loves to teach and is very nice. So she, Raissa, and the interns rounded as a team and learned a ton. I worked with 2 other interns and 2 other medical officers. It was a bit more of being thrown into the thick of things, which was a bit terrifying but not actually a bad thing. Basically I met them, and then was told to grab a chart and get to work :-) I of course had a lot of questions about reading the charting, understanding some of the meds/words, and most importantly finding the patients! It seemed nice because the cover of each chart (like a big brown folder with papers stuck inside) had a room number on it (like 1:5, meaning room 5 in area 1)...yah, not so easy because the charts do not EVER match the rooms!!! So, the other intern said to just call out the names and you will find them. I did my best at pronouncing the names, and eventually found all of my patients. All of the mothers stay in the rooms, sleeping on the floors, with the patients and do all of the bedside care like washing, feeding, diapers. Some mothers spoke a bit of english so they would help me translate/ask questions. And yes, this would not be allowed in the States, but thats how its done here. Definitely I felt guilty for it, but the mothers seemed to share all information anyway and help care for each others children. Was actually really nice to see. I think that this has become really long, and its past bedtime here! We were lucky enough to have daylight savings the day after we flew in, so now we are 6 hours ahead of PA time. Its been great so far, we still can't believe we are in AFRICA! More soon.

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