It's been a good week, though somehow it seems like more time has passed since our arrival here in Kenya. We had busy days on the wards seeing patients along with the clinical officers. The common diagnosis of the week, like always, has been malaria. Both children and adults have come down with bouts of the parasitic infection that is a plague for so many in Africa and a vague notion of an illness to so many in the developed world. Other admissions to the hospital have been for uncontrolled diabetes and hypertension, suspected bacterial blood infections, complications of HIV disease, and pneumonia and potential tuberculosis. We continue to work on how to help improve the systems operation of the hospital, instead of just focusing on treating one patient at a time. Are the vital signs being taking appropriately? Is there a better way to assemble the team in an emergency? Answers to these and other questions will hopefully improve care for these patients and many others to come. The days have been long, so unfortunately I haven't had the chance to do much outside of the hospital. Mimi brought me to a nice sunset spot a few minutes walk from our house yesterday. We saw two huge crowned cranes prancing in the distance. This is what they look like.
We were all happy to see the arrival of Dr. Svjetlana Lozo, one of our new ob/gyn global health fellows. She'll be on the ground in Kenya for months at a time, off and on for the next 2 years. She's excited to get working on some challenges encountered in the care of women at our hospital. It will also be nice just to have another doc on the ground when things get difficult.
We'll be working through the weekend and then heading out to the town of Bungoma. We're joining a team called Prevention International: No Cervical Cancer (see www.pincc.org for more details) to screen for and treat women with pre-cancerous lesions of the uterine cervix. More on that as the week unfolds.Hope you're all well, and thanks for reading.
Jeff
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