Pregnant HIV, Ultrasound, TB, and French Braids

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

In the morning Laura and I shadowed Ms. Betsy and Lourd, both Haitian nurses, with the pre-consultation for HIV patients. We saw a few HIV patients and a few patients who came to get HIV tests. Before the test they have to fill out a questionnaire about STD and HIV. Today was prenatal clinic day, so we didn't have many HIV patients, but we had one 5-month pregnant woman who was just tested positive. I don't know if they understand what it's like to have HIV or AIDS, but there wasn't much of a reaction from her. She seemed very apathetic or ignorant of the whole situation. If I were pregnant and found out that I was HIV positive, I would cry for a very long time. But people here don't seem to react much to the news that they are HIV positive.

At one point the patient flow at the HIV clinic stopped, so I wondered around the clinic for a bit. I walked into Dr. Rodney's office when he was doing an ultrasound on a 8-month pregnant lady. He stomach was really big, so he wanted to see if there were twins. Dr. Rodney stepped out to find Gavin, so I played with the ultrasound for a bit. I think I saw a hand and a head briefly, but most of the time I couldn't tell what I was looking at. Gavin came and looked at the ultrasound, and said there's probably just one baby.

A 60-year-old woman had been coughing for a long time, and her TB skin test was positive, but her sputum test was negative. I saw her after Gavin had taken her to the X-ray clinic, and the results showed that her left pleural cavity (space around the lung) was filled with fluid at the bottom. Using the percussion technique I learned in ICM (Intro to Clinical Medicine), I could tell that the left bottom part of her lung sounded dull. At first when I auscultated (listened w/ stethoscope), I wasn't careful enough to listen at the bottom of her lung, so I had missed it, but Gavin pointed it out to me later. I realized how important it is to do physical exams thoroughly. I also realized how important the X-ray was in diagnosing that she actually has TB. i really hope we can get a new X-ray machine soon.

Gavin told us that 2 patients came to Christ today. Our clinic staff are very active with sharing the Gospel, and time to time patients pray to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. I'm honored to be working with the staff here.

I keep forgetting that dinners are at 5:30PM on Wednesdays, not 6:00PM like other nights. This is the second time I came to dinner late because I thought it was at 6:00PM.

We played Dutch Blitz again, and some how Laura and Jen won by a huge margin... again! I'm thinking the game might be rigged because they used the same deck of cards as last night. Whatever, it's still a fun game.

Beth taught me how to French braid. We used Nadine's hair to practice. This is what happens when I'm surrounded by so many girls 24/7. They told me it will be good for my surgery skills... sure...