{"id":14,"date":"2015-11-04T20:42:50","date_gmt":"2015-11-04T20:42:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/laureenknuteson\/?p=14"},"modified":"2016-01-04T03:42:58","modified_gmt":"2016-01-04T03:42:58","slug":"lubango-africa-first-10-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/laureenknuteson\/2015\/11\/04\/lubango-africa-first-10-days\/","title":{"rendered":"Lubango, Africa; First 10 days"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Greetings from Lubango, Africa on my first blog post ever! \u00a0This city is home of a million people, located in the Huila province. \u00a0I am here for a first hand insight into the life at a medical mission hospital and clinic. Where do I begin? \u00a0This has been an exciting 10 days here in Lubango! \u00a0It has been a time of many “firsts” for me here at Centro Evangelico\u00a0de Medicina\u00a0do Lubango (CEML). \u00a0Today, especially, was my first time assisting on a C-section and it was awesome! \u00a0All went well. \u00a0Other firsts were assisting on a cleft palate repair (artwork!), repair of a few vesiculovaginal fistulas (these are sad), first eye surgery\/lens implant, and my first ortho cases! \u00a0They do many external fixations here for fractures, not the usual open internal fixations and rod placements. \u00a0It is hard to get the internal hardware, and the external fixation system can be sterilized and re-used again after the patient is healed. \u00a0Lubango has such a high incidence of trauma, due to vehicle and motorcycle accidents, that is well beyond the average statistics. \u00a0Driving here is crazy, and common sense is rarely used. \u00a0It is like there are no road rules! \u00a0Safety prevention is key to changing this problem. \u00a0 Often a\u00a0secondary issue to the initial fracture is the development of osteomyelitis requiring surgical debridement and possibly later bone and\/or skin grafting. \u00a0Malnutrition here plays a significant role\u00a0in the outcome of your repair.<\/p>\n

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As mentioned above, they do vesiculovaginal and rectovaginal fistula repairs here. \u00a0I personally had only read about them a few weeks prior to arrival. \u00a0African women suffer from this in high numbers, and very few places provide surgical repair.\u00a0 \u00a0Here in Angola, one other center is registered as a repair site, but I also read that there are 2 million women living in Africa with a fistula! \u00a0This is likely an underestimate as many do not seek attention and do not know that there is a treatment. This is something I would love to learn to \u00a0repair! \u00a0This\u00a0past weekend I\u00a0was taken on a site seeing trip and we encountered a youth group whose teacher wished Dr. Collins (who concentrates on Ophthalmology) to speak about pregnancy and abstinence. \u00a0He included information about fistulas and that childbirth at a young age does not allow your bodies pelvis to develop adequately, and more likely to have an obstructive labor, which after several hours of pressure may lead to tissue necrosis and fistula development.<\/p>\n

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Other things I have seen have been many with bladder cancer which Dr. Foster states is often contributed to former\u00a0Schistosomiasis infections. \u00a0I have also seen tetanus! \u00a0I am not sure he will make it as he continues to have trismus and diffuse muscle spasms requiring frequent diazepam. \u00a0I have never seen one receive so much. Of course I have also seen commonly hypertension and diabetes, which unfortunately they are not always able to get the medications for treatment. \u00a0They sometimes go to more than one pharmacy before finding the right medication and may not be able to afford.<\/p>\n

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One thing for sure, the patients here are tough! \u00a0Sometimes small procedures are done with no or very little anesthetic. \u00a0The patients have been\u00a0very willing to include me during their\u00a0office visit at the clinic, and try to express to me their complaints despite me not knowing Portuguese. \u00a0A few speak a little English. \u00a0I have\u00a0received assistance with interpreting from RN Audrey, and Dr. Foster has been\u00a0kind to share with me their stories as well.<\/p>\n

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Oh, I must not forget. \u00a0One other fun thing was that a visiting RN from a town \u00a0several hours away came to teach CPR. \u00a0I got to assist her on\u00a0this, \u00a0and I added on later to those most likely to use it, some training in using the defibrillator. \u00a0We talked about what is a shockable rhythm and they really showed interest! \u00a0Luckily, Jordan spoke Portuguese! \u00a0It was great to see their interest and attentiveness. \u00a0Now, I hope to expand later this week with some ECG reading class. I hope others will consider coming here as it is a great site to do primary care, and surgery. \u00a0I will include some pictures once I learn how to load!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Greetings from Lubango, Africa on my first blog post ever! \u00a0This city is home of a million people, located […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/laureenknuteson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/laureenknuteson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/laureenknuteson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/laureenknuteson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/laureenknuteson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/laureenknuteson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/laureenknuteson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/laureenknuteson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/laureenknuteson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}