After a good night's rest under my mosquito net and an early morning skype chat with my parents, today was my first day in the hospital. We attended the staff meeting at 8 am which consisted of chai tea and OB/GYN's M&M (morbidity and mortality) presentation for the month then were given a full tour of the hospital. At first it was very overwhelming and I wasn't sure I could find my way around alone, but it got easier as the day continued. Emily and I are both set to do our women's health rotation for the first four weeks here, but we didn't find that out until about 10:30 this morning. We had just arrived in the ER dept, otherwise known as the Casualty dept here, to help out a missionary doctor, Seth, who traveled from Nairobi to Bomet with us when we got the news to report to the maternity ward. We were both very excited to get this rotation since we were told they "pop out babies like crazy over here" and we were excited to be able to be together the first four weeks while we get our footing. Both of us are quite anxious people at times (our classmates can definitely attest to that), so this helped to calm our jitters with being here in such a new and different place.
We started by joining the team rounding in the maternity ward. We were only there for a couple of the rooms (there are several and they are all full) but it took about an hour and a half. There were several women who had lost babies due to intrauterine fetal demise (IUFD) which is just heartbreaking. One thing I did learn today is that over here they refer to HIV as ISS, which stands for immunosuppressed state, due to the stigma surrounding HIV. There were several women with ISS as well as we went through rounds. After morning rounds, we were sent to the Mother-Child Health (MCH) Clinic. Unfortunately it was extremely slow at that time so we got an hour break. We then joined several of the short-term missionaries over at the home of a long-term missionary for lunch - this is how we will spent most lunches during the week and some dinners. It was a wonderful meal! I am adjusting to the Kenyan food as well as the taste of how they prepare American-style meals because they do have a African flavor to them. They like their spice and I'm not exactly a spicy food eater, but I'm learning to enjoy it. Minimal weight loss is my goal because I can't afford to lose any basically.
After lunch, Emily and I returned to the MCH clinic and joined the CO interns seeing patients. CO stands for clinical officer and they are the Kenyan equivalent to PAs. We saw moms-to-be coming in for regular check-ups and complaints such as abdominal pain as well as women who had suffered losses that needed check-ups of incision sites, etc. It was a pretty quiet afternoon in the clinic overall. They said Monday is usually their busy day and so they had been swamped yesterday. One thing Emily and I both struggled with was adjusting to the language barrier. We would like to see the patients on our own, but since we need translators (most patients speak Swahili and most of the medical staff speak both Swahili and English so there's no real need for translators), the interns are the best people to do that and they already know what questions to ask and how to take care of the patients. Both of us are so used to being able to walk in, introduce ourselves, make small talk, and ask our medical questions ourselves that it is an adjustment for us and we are going to have to find out how we can best be utilized. We hope to find out more tomorrow about what our daily schedules will be like and if we will be taking on-call shifts or not. Today ended right at 5:15 and we were the first ones back to the guest house to enjoy a delicious dinner. Now it is time to rest up and get ready for another day of learning.
Please pray for the patients here who have lost loved ones lately. We were told there have been several pediatric deaths lately. Also, continue to pray for Mark, Emily, and I as well as the other visiting missionaries that we can be a helping hand to the staff and patients here. God bless!
Kelly
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