Busy but good...

The last two days have been busy and diverse. It’s been good but I constantly felt like I was being pulled in different ways. I guess I was. I finally put my phone on silent today because it was ringing so often – it’s seems less intrusive if it just vibrates! So, to give you an impression, I’ll give you an overview of the last 48 hours.

• Discussed the re-wiring of the laboratory with one of our maintenance guys in order for the lab to be connected to the back-up generator.
• Arranged a meeting between Mercy Ships, Children’s Hospital, Maternity Hospital and Welbodi.
• Sorted out the patient charts needed for the morbidity and mortality review on Thursday, which meant spurring the medical clerks into action.
• Conducted a (2-hour) ward check with one of the in-charge nurses on all of the wards, checking whether or not the wards are clean, if patients received medications, if observations have been done, etc.
• Checked up on the little girl that was admitted on Sunday evening, who was still in critical condition.
• Involved with the admission of a 4-week-old twin, who was very anemic.
• Escorted the father of the above child to the blood bank to make sure the child received blood urgently.
• Chased down one of the administrative staff to ask why there are no charts available on the wards for new patients.
• Took a lab request form to the lab to ask them (again) to come and do some blood tests on the little girl admitted on Sunday.
• Took a call to discuss the plan for a cleft palate patient on TB medication that left the hospital due to family/social issues.
• Met with one of the Welbodi directors and a colleague to plan for a meeting on Saturday.
• Checked up on the twin from yesterday and found out he had not yet received a dose of gentamycin so wrote him a prescription for that.
• Tried to arrange for a 1-year old boy with cerebral palsy to meet with the physiotherapists.
• Talked to a communications person from the ship concerning a potential visit form a team from the ship later this week.
• Met with a donor organization to discuss potential funding for the reconstruction of the neonatal unit.
• Discussed a few cases with the person in-charge of infant feeding on the ship.
• Delivered the hospital data (statistics) to the Hospital Manager and discussed the Quarter 1 report briefly.
• Helped one of the doctor’s crop pictures and insert them into a power point presentation for a lecture he was giving.
• Took a call from a doctor at the Aberdeen clinic concerning a patient they referred to us, who unfortunately died later this afternoon.
• Attended a lecture by a WHO consultant on the issue of influenza surveillance.
• Went back to find the twin to see if he had received the medication as prescribed (unfortunately not) and encourage the nurses to do so.
• Sent some emails.
• Helped admit a 5 year old child, putting him on oxygen, making sure his hypoglycemia was corrected, going to the blood bank for urgent blood and handing over to the doctor on call.
• And maybe I did a few other things in between.

So, that was it for Monday and Tuesday. Like I said: “busy but good”.