The week so far ...

Waking up on Monday and going to the hospital was one of the hardest things I've done. There is such a contrast between the perfection of the beaches here and the hospital. We decided to go to Female Medical Wards on Monday and we get shown where things are by the hospital secretary (even though we actually already know and it is just a formality) but bizarrely she took us to Male Surgical and left us there with no explanation. I still don't really know how messages get mixed up like they do but nevermind! We went upstairs to the female medical ward and everything was fine. Its just a completely different system here though. The Ward round in England normally consists of the whole team going round and discussing the patient and maybe doing some teaching. Here... the students and the clinical officers just take a patient each and they see them one on one like that so the patient may in fact not get to see a qualified Doctor the whole time they are in if they are not lucky. Or lucky...I can't be sure. Anyway the aim seems to be to finish as quickly as possible.

One of the patients seemed to Jess and I to be a bit ridiculous. She had a headache and nausea, blurred vision, numbness and tingling. The Clinical officer Student said it was malaria. Fair enough except that they didn't have a fever and she hadn't had a blood film done and when I asked do you ever get numbness and tingling with malaria, he said no. It probably is Malaria now that I've expressed doubt at their diagnosis but stil lthey didn't appear to have done a Neuro exam.

On Tuesday we went to TB and Leprosy Clinic. It was pretty interesting just because I didn't really know anything about Leprosy and we got some ok teaching from the Dr. We didn't see any new cases though, it was just follow up so I think we might go back next week to see because it would be good to see.

Today.... Jess and I went to the Private clinic. Not because of our elective but because Jess got ill. It sounded suspiciously like Malaria except no fever. She also had negative blood slide but Larium can do that. The Dr said it was probably Malaria anyway and gave her some tablets to take. So we'll see if she starts perking up anytime soon. Anyway it was good to see a Dr that had a good bedside manner and did a thorough examination and it only cost 20 quid for the appointment and the drugs. Fingers crossed! I am of course being a very dutiful nurse. I've got a lot of reading done in the last couple of days because of it. Finished my last book, called Blodd Sisters which is a good (but sad) read. Now I am moving on to Nelson Mandelas autobiography which I have been wanting to read for ages but never quite got round to it.

If Jess gets better then we'll be heading up to Kendwa to the beach this weekend, which is on the North west coast so will be a bit different to Paje which was on the East coast :)