one of the hardest things about being a doctor is having to say to your kids "mommy has to go to work now to take care of sick people." and have them look confused and say, "but I'M sick today!"
yes, that was today. i had to leave two boys with bad coughs and fevers and go see many more patients with bad coughs and fevers who also had HIV and poverty to deal with.
it's also hard to be a doctor and have sick kids because i just can't think logically about my own children. i tend to under do it or over do it. today before i left i examined them, gave them some symptom medications and told them to drink fluid and try to sleep. then i came home to find jude moaning on the couch with 103 degrees of fever, 30 minutes after taking ibuprofen. and i started convincing myself he had malaria (ps he's on malaria prophylaxis, has no mosquito bites, sleeps under a net, and has a horrible cough and mild tachypnea- if it looks like a horse, acts like a horse, it's probably a horse, not a zebra) and i love his super mature, 6 year old going on 25 year old med student, response, "mom! i don't have malaria! this doesn't feel any like malaria would!" (as if he's ever had it- but his gut reaction was correct- it's highly unlikely to be malaria). apparently i've been in uganda too long.
being a doctor here is different. there are so few tests, and if they are available, no one can pay for them. if they do have the medicine no one can pay for it. and everyone thinks they need medicine for everything, preferably in the form of antibiotics. it's not there fault this is what doctors give them.
i saw a man last week with the symptoms of a stroke who treated antibiotics at the local clinic.
every 3 day history of cough is treated with antibiotics, as is every patient with epigastric pain.
because of language and culture, it's hard to explain that they don't need antibiotics for their one day of symptoms. part of the problem is the language issue. the word omusujja means fever. it also means malaria, they are interchangeable. this is a problem.
i'm remembering how much of doctoring is about relationship and communication and how hard it is to connect with people when english is their second or third language and their beliefs are so different. someone told me today that she'd was sure she was sick because in the village last week her brother was murdered outside the hut in a dispute, either that or she 'd been poisoned by her husbands second wife in the village which resulted in her oral ulcers, but either way, could i please give her some flagyl. i so badly want to communicate better, to understand and speak the language, to know the background on the beliefs.
a lot of times it can feel like a drop in the bucket. i'm left wondering why i'm leaving my sick kids at home, to volunteer in a medical clinic/culture where many people are mistreated because of bad practice or limited resources. but i have to go back to the individual. did i do the right thing today for the people that i saw? if yes, than i've made a difference, small, but still a difference. maybe mpola mpola, slowly by slowly, those drops will collect into a cup of water, a cup of clean drinking water. and hopefully in the meantime my children will rid themselves of their omusujja :)
yes, that was today. i had to leave two boys with bad coughs and fevers and go see many more patients with bad coughs and fevers who also had HIV and poverty to deal with.
it's also hard to be a doctor and have sick kids because i just can't think logically about my own children. i tend to under do it or over do it. today before i left i examined them, gave them some symptom medications and told them to drink fluid and try to sleep. then i came home to find jude moaning on the couch with 103 degrees of fever, 30 minutes after taking ibuprofen. and i started convincing myself he had malaria (ps he's on malaria prophylaxis, has no mosquito bites, sleeps under a net, and has a horrible cough and mild tachypnea- if it looks like a horse, acts like a horse, it's probably a horse, not a zebra) and i love his super mature, 6 year old going on 25 year old med student, response, "mom! i don't have malaria! this doesn't feel any like malaria would!" (as if he's ever had it- but his gut reaction was correct- it's highly unlikely to be malaria). apparently i've been in uganda too long.
being a doctor here is different. there are so few tests, and if they are available, no one can pay for them. if they do have the medicine no one can pay for it. and everyone thinks they need medicine for everything, preferably in the form of antibiotics. it's not there fault this is what doctors give them.
i saw a man last week with the symptoms of a stroke who treated antibiotics at the local clinic.
every 3 day history of cough is treated with antibiotics, as is every patient with epigastric pain.
because of language and culture, it's hard to explain that they don't need antibiotics for their one day of symptoms. part of the problem is the language issue. the word omusujja means fever. it also means malaria, they are interchangeable. this is a problem.
i'm remembering how much of doctoring is about relationship and communication and how hard it is to connect with people when english is their second or third language and their beliefs are so different. someone told me today that she'd was sure she was sick because in the village last week her brother was murdered outside the hut in a dispute, either that or she 'd been poisoned by her husbands second wife in the village which resulted in her oral ulcers, but either way, could i please give her some flagyl. i so badly want to communicate better, to understand and speak the language, to know the background on the beliefs.
a lot of times it can feel like a drop in the bucket. i'm left wondering why i'm leaving my sick kids at home, to volunteer in a medical clinic/culture where many people are mistreated because of bad practice or limited resources. but i have to go back to the individual. did i do the right thing today for the people that i saw? if yes, than i've made a difference, small, but still a difference. maybe mpola mpola, slowly by slowly, those drops will collect into a cup of water, a cup of clean drinking water. and hopefully in the meantime my children will rid themselves of their omusujja :)
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