Monday 9/6 8:09

My second day at Wentz.

I walked the entire way to and from Wentz back to the house I'm staying at, by myself. I'm surprised I didn't get lost, not that it's complicated, I just tend to be directionally challenged. It's about a 30 minute walk there, then 30 minutes or more on the way back (because it's mostly uphill). I worked at the reception desk for most of the day. I actually handled some of the things on my own this time. For example I entered 100+ patients name's, info, and amount payed or owed on their running bill. It was a little tedious, but what got me the most was that ALL of the names were new to me. They were spelled odd, with multiple consonants in a row, but what made it the most fun was that all of them were written by doctors. Which means that it looked like a chicken scratched the names on the paper, with its left claw at that. 

Toward the end of the day Dr. Martin pulled me aside to talk about my stay here. He asked what I expected out of the stay, and what he or I would be able to do about that. After explaining my hopes, as opposed to expectations, he told me that I would be able to do a good deal of those things. On thursdays the clinic gives out vaccinations, so I will be trained to help with that. I will be able to shadow all the different doctors, nurses, lab tech, and pharmacists there to experience and learn what they do and help out with their jobs. There are a few medical groups (nurses, or doctors, or people) that will be based out of Gaba, but will travel to the outer parts of Uganda, I was offered to be hooked up with them to travel with them. Also, I was offered an opportunity to go over to Bethany village with some of the nurses from Wentz to help out over there. This little chat was a fantastic pick-me-up when it looked as if reception was the only thing I was going to do. (I still would have done it, but its nice to know I can do more hahaha)

After our talk I spent some time sitting in on Dr. Martin's last few patient's appointments. A few different cases with different diagnoses, which I helped diagnose one. The girl was having abnormal swelling on the outside of her ear, and when the doctor wasn't completely sure what was going on I threw out the idea of cheap earrings and/or contaminated ear buds for an ipod or the like. (The patient's mom asked if I had an opinion because after Dr. Martin's introduction, she figured I was pretty much a doctor too) 

But what was shocking (to me at least), was that 5 out of the 8 people that came in during my time in there, were all malaria cases. I was later told that more than 60% of the patients that will ever come through those doors are there because they have malaria. More people die from malaria than HIV or AIDS. Dr. Martin said something like 1,000,000+ kids die of malaria every year. It was very humbling to think of that. After the patients had all been seen I just sat and talked with Dr. Martin about the whole malaria issue and how it effects him personally, if it's even bearable to deal with that every single day of his life. Knowing that its completely likely he may never see that little kid again. Truly humbling.

On a lighter note, I had a group of kids follow me for a while on my way back from work. They kept fighting for the attention of the "muzungu" or "white man", which is what any kid in passing would call me. They insisted that I keep giving them high fives, I think they were seeing who could get the most. Oh, and I've decided that I will keep my rain jacket with me at all times. While I didn't have to go out in it, it poured pretty hard today. I would not want to be out in it haha...