Malamo

Hello everyone! We are doing well... we are still here! Things have picked up quite a bit... it is busy during the day and into the evening!  The hospital is busy, there are many patients, lots of things we are learning. Dr. Harvey is in Sierra Leone right now, so Dr. Fuka is the medical director for now. For the most part, he handles all of his surgical patients and I manage the medicine and pediatrics patients. He is available to ask questions, but the situation forces me to make more and more of my own decisions. It's continually a great learning experience, but it's been very challenging. I feel like I am learning so much as I struggle to understand many diseases that I haven't seen before. Maybe I've read about them in a book, but I can't guarantee I remember many of the facts! I feel incredibly underqualified to make many of the decisions I'm making, but I keep trying to do what I feel is right for each patient and trying to read as much as I can. The language barrier is tough at times too. I think my french is coming along, but it's especially hard when the patients only speak lingala, or very little french when I'm struggling enough as it is to express myself (Candice has become my Lingala translator - she is catching on so quickly!). You realize how much of a diagnosis is based on history when you can't really get a history! The nurses are so valuable though. There have been definite frustrations, but I think they've figured out the speed at which they need to speak for me to understand and they're probably used to my poor pronunciation now :). They have seen many of these illnesses a lot more than I have though, so it's great to get their input and opinion. 

We have had some tough cases recently that I promise I will write more about soon! For now, we just wanted to say that we're doing well, and staying healthy! Thank you to everyone who's giving us words of encouragement. It's always wonderful to hear. Time to crawl under our mosquito net and get some sleep!