ABC Clinic
It's been forever since I wrote, and I'm sorry about that. Life has trucked on and we're all doing well, though summer has felt busier than I expected it to. Chad had only 2 weeks off before the next term started, so he's been hard at work, first developing the courses, then preparing for them, and now teaching them!
After getting back from South Africa, I was able to finalize things with our leadership and with ABC clinic, and we've worked out an agreement where I will see patients 3 mornings a week. The clinic is part of a mission compound that includes another seminary, the school which Anya and Ethan attend, and the community clinic. The clinic serves anyone for a small fee, but it won't be as busy as the local hospital clinics, where the services are free. I shadowed a doctor there for 2 days and it's remarkably similar to where I worked in the US--with the additional potential diagnoses of malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever, cholera, typhoid....arrrgh! I've been cramming through the tropical medicine sections of my texts, but it doesn't feel like it's sticking yet. It'll probably be a stressful few weeks of getting used to it all.
And one of the scariest things for me is that Malawi is requiring me to 'work' at the Central Hospital for 4 weeks before they'll grant me a local license! There's another American nurse who will be doing it with me, and we agree we'd sure love a dose of Xanax to get through it, because it's going to be tough! I am thankful they've decided to license me through the nursing board rather than the medical board, so I'll be 'working' as a nurse on the units rather than as an attending provider. The doc I know who had to do this was basically set loose on the units to manage everything while the other docs took the days off! And nurses here are allowed/expected to do so much less than in the US...there's really much less chance of me killing someone this way! But the wards are just big rooms with tons of beds, no infection control, and who knows what else. The patients are only fed what their families bring them each day. It'll be an eye-opening experience, to be sure. Please pray for me over the next 4 weeks--it all starts Monday morning!
After getting back from South Africa, I was able to finalize things with our leadership and with ABC clinic, and we've worked out an agreement where I will see patients 3 mornings a week. The clinic is part of a mission compound that includes another seminary, the school which Anya and Ethan attend, and the community clinic. The clinic serves anyone for a small fee, but it won't be as busy as the local hospital clinics, where the services are free. I shadowed a doctor there for 2 days and it's remarkably similar to where I worked in the US--with the additional potential diagnoses of malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever, cholera, typhoid....arrrgh! I've been cramming through the tropical medicine sections of my texts, but it doesn't feel like it's sticking yet. It'll probably be a stressful few weeks of getting used to it all.
And one of the scariest things for me is that Malawi is requiring me to 'work' at the Central Hospital for 4 weeks before they'll grant me a local license! There's another American nurse who will be doing it with me, and we agree we'd sure love a dose of Xanax to get through it, because it's going to be tough! I am thankful they've decided to license me through the nursing board rather than the medical board, so I'll be 'working' as a nurse on the units rather than as an attending provider. The doc I know who had to do this was basically set loose on the units to manage everything while the other docs took the days off! And nurses here are allowed/expected to do so much less than in the US...there's really much less chance of me killing someone this way! But the wards are just big rooms with tons of beds, no infection control, and who knows what else. The patients are only fed what their families bring them each day. It'll be an eye-opening experience, to be sure. Please pray for me over the next 4 weeks--it all starts Monday morning!
will be praying it goes well.
ReplyDeletealison x