Posts

Weekly Reflection for January 15 - 20

We started the week at Ruaha National Park on a safari. We were able to see a variety of plants and animals ranging from baobab trees, elephants, giraffes, lions and my personal favorite, the leopards. I was interested to learn that some of the plants have a defense mechanism to prevent the giraffes from overeating and killing the plant. Certain plants can release a chemical that makes the leaves taste bad to the giraffes and prevents them from overeating. This chemical will then be released downwind leading the giraffes to graze upwind!   After our return to Ilula on Tuesday, we got right back to work learning from our Tanzanian colleagues. On Wednesday, I was able to watch my first Cesarean Section with Dr. Elisha. Scheduled Cesarean sections typically occur on Tuesdays and Thursday, but emergency Cesarean sections occur daily. The OR room typically includes a physician, two nurses and the anesthesiologist. Rachel and I were also able to round on the antenatal and postnatal war...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Day in Palliative Care

Hello! Yesterday, Maggie and I had the opportunity to accompany the palliative care team on their rounds which occur once weekly. They are given the names of sick people by each village's community leader and do their best to see each patient. Ilula Lutheran Hospital provides these services free to the community as many of these patients will never be able to afford the cost of care or cannot physically travel to the hospital. The palliative care team includes a nurse, doctor, social worker, and pastor. Emma, the nurse, explained that their focus was to relieve all patients of physical, mental, social, and spiritual pain. The team was designed to help meet the patient's needs and provide care and compassion. The list of patients in need grows each day while the resources remain very limited. Currently, there is over 400 patients on their waiting list that need to be seen. They told me there was a recent period of several months where they had to suspend these visits due to a la...
Post a Comment
Read more

A fun time was had by all

Image
January 18, 2023 We are back from Ruaha, but would rather be there. On my bucket list would be to stay at Mwagusi “until I got tired of it.” I would not go on game drives every day, just languish and relax, read, watch the elephants, etc. But here we are, back at Ilula, and thriving. Students had a productive day, enjoying the teaching of Dr. Elisha and others. He is a standout! I spent some time in the MCH or RCH - I get confused about the correct terminology. I “helped” Asifewe, whom I have known for over ten years now. She was weighing the kids and recording. I did do some MUAC measurements. MUAC is mid-upper arm circumferences a screen and surrogate for acute malnutrition. Some of the children were due for immunizations and received them. The mothers bring their own slings for weights. Then the infants are hung in the sling on a scale. Most didn’t seem to mind. Of c course, Babu was tempted to swing them! I didn’t. Asifewe's daughter is one of the scholarship recipients a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Weekly Reflection

  It has since been over a week since the first group arrived at Ilula. Over the past week we have attended services, visited patients, and presented at the Ilula International Conference. I spent the first day at the hospital in the outpatient department or OPD working with Dr. Imelda and Dr. Jon. We were able to utilize newer Xray services to aid in the diagnosis and treatment of multiple patients. It is hard to imagine that patients used to have to travel over an hour to Iringa for Xray services. Tuesday morning, I was able to round with Dr. Miriam on the pediatric inpatient unit. On Wednesday we received a Swahili lesson from Joyce. I can now introduce myself, tell others where I am from and utilize common greetings. However, I am still working on counting! On Friday I was able to present on hypertension at the conference. My biggest hope is that I was able to provide useful and practical information that can be utilized to better patient care and patient outcomes. Even more ex...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ilula International Conference

Image
Greetings from Tanzania!  We just finished the two day Ilula International Conference in Iringa. It was exciting to see the medical community come together to teach each other. There was roughly 135 attendees from hospitals all over Tanzania. Each medical facility sent a group consisting of 1 pharmacist, doctor, nurse, and administrator to represent them and foster interdisciplinary relationships. We heard from a variety of topics including performance management to oncology emergencies. The conference is broken up into a series of presentations and ends with brainstorming quality improvement projects for their respective hospitals. The presentations were very engaging and it was amazing to see the quality improvement projects that came out of the conference. Many groups chose to work on improving cervical cancer screening, reduce home deliveries, and improve prenatal care. Maggie, Leah, and I all had the chance to present and it was a great experience to have such a wonderful audi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Updated Accommodations

Image
 Hello from Ilula! The whole group has now arrived safely into Ilula. The final travel group arrived on Tuesday. We are fortunate to be staying on the hospital grounds in the guest houses. The guest houses were constructed in 2006 and were updated for the first time in November of 2022. This included renovation to the kitchen (with an addition of a small electric oven), new pavers outside the houses, new beds/mosquito nets, and a total revamp of the bathrooms. We are talking HOT showers, all. Wow. We feel so spoiled! We did run out of water yesterday at 2 of the guest houses so… we keep going with the flow (or lack there of). Shana
Post a Comment
Read more

Group One and a Half

Image
 As I am calling it, group 1.5 has arrived in Iringa and on our way to Ilula. John, Solveig and I are the “middle” group and are on our way to church on this warm, sunny Sunday morning. After a fun ride in a small airplane from Dar es Salaam to Iringa, we were greeted by our drivers with Makuta Travel. What service so far-a Karibu welcome sign, breakfast at their office and now access to Wi-Fi on our ride into town allowing me to write this post. I haven’t been here since 2014 so it’s been fun to see how much Iringa has changed and grown. I can’t wait to see Ilula again.  Shana
Post a Comment
Read more