Blogs

FGHL Blog: Jason Axt - Extreme Medical Issues in the Field

Warning: This post contains graphic medical images.

Feb 28 2013

Jason Axt
Warning: This post contains graphic medical images.

This week started with an orientation to the hospital. I learned where the theatres were, where the clinic patients were and the location of the wards. Patients were housed in common sleeping rooms with 4 – 20 patients per ward, with men and women housed separately. I was introduced to Dr. Irungu, the Kenyan consultant whose service I would join.

FGHL Blog: Arun Nair - The Doctor I Thought I'd Be

Feb 02 2013

Spoiled. That’s the only way to describe how I feel heading back to the states. I feel that I had the opportunity to practice medicine the way my 6-year-old-self imagined it while in Guyana and I couldn’t be more thankful for the experience.

FGHL Blog: Courtney Massaro - Last Blog from Haiti

Jan 13 2013

January 13

I can’t believe my time here in Haiti is over—but it is. I’m
writing this from my guesthouse in Port-au-Prince, in preparation for
my flight home tomorrow.

I would like to thank Senator Frist for forming the Frist Global
Health Leadership Program, and for allowing me to have come to Haiti
to work at HIC. I’d also like to thank the many people at Vanderbilt,
Dartmouth, and HIC who helped me make the needed connections and
organize the details of my trip. Last but not least, I’d like to give
a special shout-out to my boyfriend, for supporting and encouraging me
to leave him—and the U.S.—for three months and go work in Haiti.
Thank you.

FGHL Blog: Courtney Massaro - The Lost Women of Haiti

Jan 05 2013

Courtney Massaro
Happy New Year!

Apart from working at the maternity this week—and getting to celebrate the arrival of 2013 with laboring women and their new babies—I’ve been busy completing the list of HIV+ women who have been lost to follow-up. From March of 2009 until November of 2012 there were 240 women who started receiving HIV care at HIC, but now no longer are doing so. I really hope that the social worker and the community health workers will make use of this list and that some of them will be found and restarted with their HIV care. I am however, not incredibly optimistic that many women will be located. The social worker and community health workers are already very busy and to try to track down 240 women—with little more than their names, dates of birth, and possible addresses—seems very ambitious. But I feel that if even one or two women are found and are restarted in care that my work on the list was worth it.

FGHL Blog: Elizabeth Harris - Return to Samaria (and the Rain!)

Dec 30 2012

I returned to Samaria with a Clinical Officer, Waweru, in tow to staff Samaria for the week in Susan’s absence. Susan has an obligation to attend training and program review for her participation in Tunza the family planning program supported in part by USAID. If Susan is not able to find a substitute during her absence, then she must close her clinic. In this case it would have been for 4 ½ days, difficult on the patients and Susan’s income. Even so, engaging a substitute adds costs to clinic expenditures, that may or may not be recouped from leaving the clinic open. This underscores the difficulty that private clinic nurses have in taking time away from their practice if they are the sole practitioner. It is difficult to engage in continuing education, a must for any clinical practitioner, if the economics and finding a trusted substitute are onerous.

FGHL Blog: Courtney Massaro - Episiotomies

Dec 28 2012

Courtney Massaro
As I mentioned in my last post I’ve struggled with practicing as I’ve been taught and believe is best while also trying to respect how my Haitian counterparts were taught and what they believe is best practice.

FGHL Blog: Courtney Massaro: Cultural and Medical Differences in Haiti

Dec 22 2012

Reporting from Les Cayes, Haiti
As the providers at HIC (i.e. the nurses) have become more comfortable with me and my abilities I’ve slowly begun to help teach the nursing students who are present during my shifts. This week I got to help a couple of the students do deliveries, which were rewarding experiences, though ones I’m not (yet) totally comfortable with. In many ways I still feel like a student myself—I graduated from nursing school in May 2012 and this is my first job practicing as a “real” (as opposed to “student”) midwife—and so it’s a bit odd for me to already be put in a teaching role. That said, I really do enjoy guiding the students and helping them grow more confident with and skilled in catching babies.

FGHL Blog: Elizabeth Harris - Moving to Mariine Maternity Nursing Home

Dec 19 2012

So I have moved temporarily for the week to the Mariine Maternity Nursing Home outside of Nyeri to work with Josephine Gikunja. I will go back to Samaria next week while Susan attends a training workshop. Susan has enlisted the services of a Medical Officer (Physicians’ Assistant) to work with me and help with translation.

FGHL Blog: Courtney Massaro - Lessons Learned in Haiti (So Far)

Dec 13 2012

First off, an update on the two abandoned babies: they were not there when I went to work after my three days off. I was told that the girl (who was very cute and term) had been adopted, while the boy (who was a premi, but seemed very healthy—though of course small—to me) had died.
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