A typical work day in Galmi...
Most days start with an hour-long resident teaching conference, followed by rounding on the surgical patients. At any time, there are about 80 surgical patients in the hospital, divided into three teams. So, I end up seeing about 25-30 patients, which takes 1-3 hours depending on how sick the patients are and how much time is spent teaching. Next, work starts in the operating room and clinic.
Following are three of the OR patients from one day this week:
Three-year-old boy with bilateral neck swelling, left neck abscess. We drained the abscess, which turned out to be mostly an infected tumor- likely lymphoma.😔
35-year-old man with bowel blockage. He had been in the hospital in another country, but refused operation there so he could be seen at Galmi Hospital. He was actually feeling mostly better by the time I saw him in clinic a few days later, but since he had no prior surgery, an operation was needed to figure out the cause of his recurrent obstruction.
A mass blocking his intestine. Likely cancer. 😔 He recovered quickly from the operation, but unfortunately his prognosis is quite poor since chemotherapy is not available.
25-year-old woman in labor with severe heart failure of pregnancy. She couldn’t tolerate spinal anesthesia because of her heart failure, so her twins were delivered by C-section using only local numbing medication. Both babies were beautiful, perfectly formed, and appeared full-term but hadn't survived the labor. They had clearly died several hours before the mom made it to the hospital. This was her fourth pregnancy. All three of her other babies were also deceased (I don’t know the reasons, but, death in children under 5 is not that unusual here). 😩🥺💔
Typically tragic.
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