Blogs from Chiang Mai, North-West Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 12

Today we had Koew Min Gai for breakfast. I skyped the granddaughters this morning and showed them my breakfast. Angel wanted to know why I was eating that food for breakfast. I explained that in Thailand they do not have pancakes, waffles, cereal and toast for breakfast. She said she likes England better but what is funny is she was too little to even remember England. I guess she just likes her American breakfast food. The girls also had difficulty understanding how it was morning for me when they were getting ready to eat dinner. Oh, how I miss them. This morning was cold. It was drizzling and slightly windy. The hospital is open space and there is no heat. I had wished that I had brought a sweater or something because it was chilly. As ... read more

Today was our last day of clinical at Nakornping Hospital in Chiang Mai on our respective units. Melissa and I spent the morning on our female medical unit and we got to do and observe more than I expected! We observed a thoracentesis which was done at bedside with lidocaine by the first year doctor, which went well. This was interesting to observe the dynamics of the doctor, the resident, and this intern and how they worked together but didn’t really help the intern out much. The teaching style is not through explanations but through forcing ones hands and showing after. We saw this teaching style in the labor ward as well; the nursing students are basically delivering the baby yet the instructors are forcing the student’s hands around and yelling at them. The one student ... read more

Today was another beautiful day. The sky was overcast and there was a nice breeze, which made it cool outside. I’m thinking it might rain tonight because the wind has picked up. This morning I was in the labor and delivery unit again. I observed two births, one male and one female. That makes 6 births this week, 5 of which were girls! These two births weren’t much different from the other births the past few days. Our preceptor wasn’t there again today, so we followed the instructions of the CMU and BCNC instructors. I asked a few people if the hydrocephalus baby was born already, and nobody knew. The mother was no longer in her bed, so i assume she had delivered. Around 10am everyone met up and viewed the hemodialysis unit. Th unit and ... read more

Today we started the day with some pork and rice that was delicious and attended morning ceremony. After morning ceremony, we went to the hospital and when we got there I volunteered to go into the OR for the day. I was excited for the opportunity to see how surgeries were done differently in Thailand, but to my surprise they are actually very similar. There were two options for surgery and I ended up going into the hip replacement surgery. The patient was an 80-year-old who had fallen and fractured the head of her femur. When they brought the patient in she was completely awake and looked scared about what was to come. They put her on the operating table and started tying her hands down and covering her with sterile blankets and they anesthesiologist came ... read more

Today the weather was sunny and hot although I had to spend most of my time inside. I turned down the opportunity to see a spinal surgery to go back on the labor and delivery unit. Sadly it was a very slow morning on the unit. I was only able to observe one delivery right before leaving for lunch. A lot of the moms on the unit had complications/high risk pregnancies. Some of these complications/situations included epilepsy, twins, SVD, and hydrocephaly. The hydrocephalus case was very interesting. The babies head was already measuring over 10cm! The doctors plan for the birth was for it to be vaginal. Once the baby descends into the birth canal, the doctor will tap into the babies head and release the fluid so that the baby can safely make its way ... read more