Mombasa, Kenya: Day 11

Back in minor theatre today we started off with a really gruesome injury. This woman, Beatrice, was in a bus accident and suffered a severe arm and leg injury. The wound needed “surgical toileting” which turned out to mean that we were going to cut away all the gunk and debris so that her wound could heal properly. I watched the arm be done and then did her leg wound myself. It was tough because the doctor told me not to give her any local so she was basically screaming the entire time I was working on her. She was grateful for the help though and appreciated that we took our time to try to ease her pain. The rest of the morning was a lot of redressing wounds and I practiced suturing again on a man who had been hit with a carjack. He was also in a lot of pain so I felt like I needed to hurry through the sutures. I also had an audience when doing sutures and was feeling the pressure to do a good job. They ended up being pretty good sutures after all, but the combined pressure of the situation is putting me to bed early tonight. The take away from today is to remember to retain compassion for patients and not to become detached from the situation. After a while of looking at the wounds they started to look more like a dissection than a person and I don’t want to be that kind of doctor.

This afternoon was spent at another orphanage. It is a strange thing to come into a situation like that with presents and soccer balls and candy and not know the story behind these faces. It is always a good time because they are happy to see us but I don’t feel that I am making a very big investment in these lives. In the future I’d like a more intimate time with an orphanage so that I can really know them. They were wonderful though and so full of joy, I left with high spirits and a heavy heart.