Back to the Grind

I started at the hospital and am currently shadowing Dr. Matthias Kohls, a German OBGYN. The doctors here are very eager to explain everything, which is nice because I ask questions about every 30 seconds. In the morning of my first day, I had the experience of examining the cervical dilation of a very pregnant lady. I came to Shyria to learn and do things I wouldn’t be able to do in the United States, but I had no idea I would be learning Gynecology right away. Although I was a little uncomfortable trying my hand at this, pun intended, it soon faded and my confidence rose as I saw more and more patients. Each day as we make the rounds through the maternity ward, we use a portable ultrasound machine to see how each pregnancy is coming along. As the doctor explains the anatomy of both the baby and the mother using these images, my time studying the MCAT material helps me to understand what is going on.
This past Friday, I saw my first birth and couldn’t help laughing a little when Matthias yelled, “Full armor!” As I soon witnessed, the apron, boots, and goggles were very necessary. I am really enjoying working in the maternity ward and am glad this is where I started. I hope to jump over to Pediatrics in the next couple days so I can get a nice chronological trend in my learning here at the hospital.
I headed down to Kigali today to pick up tickets to see the mountain gorillas on Friday, as well as accompany 6 child patients traveling to see a Pediatric Cardiologist. Most of the doctors in Shyira are expected to go outside their specialty due to the lack of physicians on the rural hill, so to see a specialist working in the city was exciting. Some of the children were cleared with conditions that would not require surgery, while others will have to wait for two Australian surgeons to fly in to remedy their conditions. It was a long day because we had to leave early and I had very little room in the crowded car on both legs of the 3-hour trip to Kigali. I can’t wait to see the gorillas and travel a bit, so I hope my next post will have some great pictures.