Today once again the cab driver can´t manage to pick us up on time..this time we ordered a cab for 6:30am so we could make it to the hospital before 7 am, but of course the cab didn´t show up before 28 minutes later than arranged. We then left for the hospital 2 mins before 7 am....this is Africa, and we´re always on African time..meaning there is no time to be on time...lol
We kind of got a rude awakeing when we walked into a morning meeting where the staff at Casualty were complaining about the students (The Namibians) that tend to disappers for hours and expect the staff to sign for them being there all day. "Oh shit" I thought, thinking that we will have to prove them wrong about us, the Norwegains. After the meeting was over everybody seems very nice, welcome us and we got a complete tour of Casualty and other "places", like Triage and more...
Then it was time to start...right away we were told to take Vitals of the patients coming in, set up IV, PVK, measure bloodsugar, give injections and get "this and that". It was no time to think, just jump into the action, like if we have been there many times before... It was a little hectic in the beginning since we didn´t know the routines and what to do or not to do, but I tried as best as I could. I got to give my 2nd intramuscular injection ever, but that went well, I think...and hope to get more chances at it while being in Casualty this week. I got to watch a guy getting his head getting stitched from having a epileptic seizure while driving his car, that resulted in him crashing the car. Then we were told that a lot of drivers get seizures while driving their cars but won´t admit that they have problems with seizures. We experienced patients with a big variety of problems like overdose, a girl getting hit by a car for the 2nd time, a little boy was bitten by a dog, fall in a stair, bartholin abcess, hypoglycemic shock, girl fainted twice at school, someone who just tested positiv for HIV, nasogastric tube. and more. We got to assist and observe...overall an interesting day with a lot of situations I learned a lot from. We even got a lot of positive fedback from one of the nurses when were done for the dayI´m looking forward to a lot more to learn the rest of the week there.
At the house we made tacos for one of the other student´s birthday.. we celebrated her birthday, with partyhats and cake:-)
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