On a roll...a slow roll



Me and Justin with Yama girl and her family

 Ok so I think I'm on a roll with this picture thing-it just takes a loooooong time to load! I'll try and send a picture with my blogs to catch you guys up to snuff.

My day today was good. I'm really liking the new medical student with me-she's doing very well.  She's a hustler!  We had a good rounding session this morning-she learned alot and was well prepared.  More and more people (nurses, PA students, etc) are starting to join teaching rounds.  After rounds we tried to get an early start on clinic and ended up finishing a bit early which was cool.  I got another call to see one of the "VIP" dignitaries in private consultation.  Kinda reminds of me of being back in New York...anyway, I figure if I help take care of them, then hopefully they can continue to take care of Liberia.

My patients are still doing ok and there were no deaths in the ER today on the Trauma side!  I was able to get out and grab a great bowl of spaghetti and catch up on some reading.  I have 4 cases tomorrow-one is a little girl who had an old hip infection that went untreated and it ended up completely destroying her joint.  She can't even go to school b/c she's in so much pain and has this horrible limp.  I'm going to completely resect what's left of her hip joint and attempt to remove all of the infected bone.  I'm going to do it approaching her hip from the front which isn't something that we train too much in back home-I feel comfortable doing it though; will let you know how it goes.  She'll be on antibiotics for awhile just to play it safe.  The most common antibiotics we have in our armamentarium include ampicillin, gentamycin, ceftriaxone, flagyl, and cloxacillin.  That's pretty much it.  There is no coumadin, aspirin, lovenox, arixtra, or heparin to prophylax against DVTs either, which is a big part of the orthopaedic surgery algorithm.

I didn't get to do the radio show today-when I informed the general administrator about it, she was like "well we have an HIV specialist here and he probably should be the one to do it."  She didn't want me to step on anyone's toes I guess-it's all good.  So long as people are educated I don't care who delivers the message; I don't really care too much about the politics of it all. 

For those of you who don't know, I did spend some time in South Africa in 2003 when I was in medical school.  My good friend was interested in some of the comparisons/contrasts to my current experience here in Liberia.  Honestly I have found many things to be quite similar.  While the social infrastructure is quite different (Liberia is still recuperating from a civil war that has left its economy, gov't, educational, and health systems ravished), there is a similar sense of passion and community to improve their circumstances.  It's pretty cool to hear people's stories of how they were displaced during the war and have now returned to chip into the future development of their country.  I got that same sense of community in the small rural South African village we were in.  I think that's just a quality that is evoked when you live under certain extremes.  Sometimes the worst circumstances can bring out the best in a people; the same way the best circumstances can bring out the worst in others...

I have matured personally over the years in my social and professional development and have some personal goals I hope to reach during my time here which I may begin to share as my time progresses here.  But for now there's my half-way intelligent comment for the day bruh. ;-)

Again, thank you all for your prayers and thoughts-they mean so much to me.  I do receive your various emails and messages.  Forgive me if I'm unable to reply speedily, but my thoughts and prayers are with you all just the same.

Nite.  More pix to come...