First of all apologies it has taken me almost a week to write about Savaii.
I will show everyone pics when i get back and can tell everyone all about it....will bore everyone galore! We went up a mountain called Matavanu. It wasnt as much the mountain/volcano which was great, as the man who ran it. He was called Da Craterman.....and was an amazing guy. He seems a legend in Samoa and was hilarious. He got in the car with us to drive with us up the crater and guide us, but he stopped halfway and pulled some plants and made them into crowns. We all wore the spiky plants on our heads so that we were 'Princesses of Da Crater'! The view looking into the crater was great and photos cant do it justice! Lastly re Savaii, we went on a local bus for the first time. They are very trusting here...it is an old wooden bus rather like the yellow American school buses. You get on and pay when you get off but it is up to the passenger how much they pay, as everyone here is honest! Also there are no bus stops so you can just get on and off wherever you want which is great as it basically is door to door service. However at busy times, everyone has to sit on each others laps so that the bus can hold as many people as hospital. White people in Samoa are called 'palagai' and they are nice and give us our own seats lol unless the bus is really packed!
We were on the bus, which i forgot to mention has subwoofer speakers which pump out the latest music so its like a school disco on the bus lol! The lady in front of us suddenly said something in Samoan to the driver. He promptly pulled over, she got off and went to the street shop, chatted to her friend while we all waited. After 5 minutes she then got back on the bus, thanked the driver and we continued our journey! Luckily that didnt happen to many times as we would never have got anywhere!
We got back from Savaii on Friday afternoon and then went with friends from where we are living to watched the AFL (Aussie Football) final. Some of the med students here are Australian and their team was in the final. I remember trying to learn about AFL when we went to Australia 2 winters ago to watch the Ashes, but had forgotten most of it. We watched it in a sports bar here, and for once it was full of white people. There are lots of Australians who have settled over ehre, so it was packed and a great atmosphere. If only they showed the Premier League here, but it would mean them opening at like 3am in the morning......and hardly any English people here. We always get mistaken for being from NZ or Aus as thats where most white people here are from. There are some other English med students but we havent met any other English tourists as too far away for everyone i think!
We carried on with paediatrics this week so far. We also started going to A and E. As we thought most med students had now left, we thought A and E may be empty and we would get a chance to do stuff. It has been good so far. We got given our own consultation room in outpatients which is same as A and E here. We sat behind our desk and saw the pts. We took as good a history as we could as most of them did not understand what we were asking as there English wasnt great. We then presented the history and examination findings to a doctor who discussed them with us and then we wrote prescriptions which she then signed. I saw a lady with dengue fever but due to language problem, i didnt realise she actually had quite obvious dengue from her symptoms. I then was told to take blood for dengue serology but this cant be analysed in Samoa. The blood gets sent to Australia and results take 3 weeks. As dengue fever is caused by a virus, antibiotics are no good to treat it so the treatment is rehydration, so pts dont need to be in hospital. It is a notifiable disease though and the doctor said that there is an outbreak in Samoa at the moment of dengue. They have had approx 250 cases in the past month, so we need to be very wary of mosquitoes.
Cant remember all my news as trying to condense it all...hmm
back to A and E
we were in A and E again yesterday afternoon It was so quiet, i think we are good luck charms for the Drs and people of Samoa not to get ill lol..or they are scared of seeing us 'palagi'!
As we were about to leave, a mother came in with a 1 wk old baby. One look at the baby, and the Dr rushed her into the resus area. The baby was ashen grey and really cyanosed (blue). It was breathing about 70 times/min and really struggling to get air into its lungs. At one poiont it stopped breathing, but i learnt with babies that need stimulation to breathe so need to tickle their feet etc.
It was horrible with the family standing there watching everyone try to help the baby breathe
The baby's SATS were 69% whe she came in, but gradually went up. I had to hold the oxygen mask for the baby as there were no masks small enough for it. I saw the baby on the ward round today..and she is much better. They think she has neonatal sepsis but with appropriate treatment, hopefully will be okay.
A man then limped in with a stab wound on his leg. It looked like a small but deep stab wound but it had happened about 5 hrs earlier and he was in lots of pain. The Dr showed us how to stitch, so that we will hopefully do it ourselves next time!
Today i went to teaching at 8am where there was a forensice pathologist talking about how to present yourself in court and he then showed some very gruesome photos of how people died which made us med students and all the Drs try hard to keep our just eaten breakfasts down.
I then did paediatrics WR, frantically scribbling everything in the notes. It has got to the point now, when i look at the kid's notes that i can just see my writing from the previous days etc. At least it means i can read it lol!
i then had to admit a child by myself. I took the history and did the examination. I wasnt confident of my examination findings, especially as the 1 yr old wouldnt stop crying. She only had to look at me and would cry! I had multiple listens to her lungs and chest. I then asked the Dr to double check and was pleased that my findings were the same as hers as i thought they were a bit unusual. I then had to write my diagnosis and management plan. It is odd here that no one wanted me to present the history or counter sign my history taking. They just told me to see the kid and take a hx, examination and admit her. Hopefully i did it right and did my best, and hopefully the kid who i diagnosed with pneumonia will start getting better on IV antibiotics.
I nearly forgot about the McDonalds! It was funny today on WR. There is a kid in the hospital with typhoid. he is doing really well but his dad said today that he didnt like the hospital food so wasn't eating. So the Dr prescribed him a McDonalds. She told the dad to take him to McDonalds and then come back to the hospital. So i will see tomorrow if that did the trick!
Off to see Mamma Mia at the cinema tonight....ive already seen it in Brighton, but like it, and will be good to tap the feet to again. Going in to A and E tomorrow eve so hopefully will be busier and may get to do some suturing........Samoans beware
Keep facebooking, emailing etc
Sarah xxxx
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