Blogs from Castries, Saint Lucia, Central America Caribbean - page 2

Exactly halfway through my time here now. I finished A&E yesterday. Nothing too dramatic happened in my last few days, although I did walk in to the ER on Thursday to see all the doctors doing CPR on someone. I waited for 10 minutes and then left, because it seemed a bit morbid after that. Otherwise, I got to see quite a few patients, mainly just sprains and vomiting and things you see in the UK. Next week I start internal medicine, and I'll be there for the rest of my time here. So yesterday, we went to buy some plants from sort of like a garden centre. But in St Lucia, they don't need greenhouses, so there's just a little forest off a main road that has hundreds of plants and you just pick what ... read more

Sunday July 1 - Terrible sleep. Still thinking about moving into a tent, but will see what happens when I get back from St. Lucia with Erika gone. I got up around 9am and of course can do nothing since everyone is asleep. They were all woken up to go somewhere for lunch with Erika before her flight in the evening. Once they left it was just me and the guys who work there until 2pm, or so I thought. Just after they left, we heard Lisa sprained her ankle and was coming back. Fortunately, she wasn't on the other side of the river yet. I finished packing and at 1:30pm Ben helped me get my things and myself across the river. I still find it difficult and a little scary to cross, holding the line, ... read more

Just a quick one to talk about a patient that came in the ambulance today. A man had been working in his garage this morning when a disgruntled ex-employee came and attacked him with a machete. He had a really deep cut to his arm which was almost to the bone (it had gone through all the skin and fat layers), and a cut to his cheek which went almost the whole way through, and a couple of other superficial ones. He was ok, but going into shock so needed fluids, and all the wounds needed stitches. He was a bit out of it, but the fluids helped bring him around again. Shock makes me people a little illogical though, as he refused to let the doctor clean his wound because it hurt too much, but ... read more

Took me a while to write up, but I'll tell you about my day Wednesday. Spent the morning in A&E, and finished pretty early because there weren't many patients in that morning. I saw a 92 year old lady with colon cancer and I could actually feel her tumour when I examined her. I also got to write up all the forms for bloods and xrays, which is really difficult because nothing has the same name as in England, but I'm getting the hang of it. I keep forgetting to give the forms to the patient first to go pay for them though, the nurses keep having to remind me. It just seems so alien to have to pay before you can have a blood test. I also found out that patients have to pay at ... read more

So today was my last day of Paediatrics. These past two weeks have definitely gone quite quick. Today I went to the outpatient clinic which is based at the new hospital. Apparently the outpatient clinics are the only thing that is finished, and Victoria hospital doesn't actually have any rooms for clinics, so they moved there last month. It is a much nicer hospital. Proper flooring, proper chairs, proper examination beds. Still no computers though, and not even a digital scale for babies. They have to move a weight along a scale until it balances to weigh the babies. But it is nice. It's a shame its not properly finished and funded so they can use the wards. It's much cleaner and they have proper sinks in all of the rooms. The patients don't have an ... read more