Our clinic today was pretty crazy. I guess the community in which we were set up didn't really come to see us because so many from another community showed up. They had walked about 2 hours to get there, so the decision was made to have us see them today and the local community tomorrow. I don't have the "final count" yet, but I heard about 350 patients went through triage before they started to shut it down. So needless to say, it was crazy busy. A lot of families came in with 5-6 kids, so it was tough to see a lot of them all at once.
Interesting cases today:
- we had a colles fracture (broken radius and ulna), which we sent to the hospital for x-ray and fixing considering it was 2 weeks old.
- lady post tumor removal from abdomen about a year prior presented with symptoms concerning for cancer, so sent her to hospital.
- lady with a very very large ganglion cyst, which was a good teaching point for the kids.
- another pseudomonas otitis externa infection in ear.
Nothing super crazy, which was just fine with us. No crazy hypertensives, dangerously high blood sugars, or anything like that, just a seemingly vast amount of patients which kept us really busy. We'll see if our last day tomorrow presents with anything nuts.
It's been pretty interesting to see how this organization does things, and I think it's a pretty good example of an organization that has grown to the point where they are more concerned with the organization, having things "organized" well, hitting their numbers, etc. and forgetting about the reason they should be doing this -- which is the people. Some of the college kids were pretty upset the other day when we finished early in the day and they were shutting down the clinic, and a family of 4 were standing outside the gate asking to be seen. They were told "maybe," and were made to wait a while because they "showed up late," and they wanted to "make them sweat." The kids were upset because they didn't understand why we couldn't treat a group of patients who were begging to be seen, when two doctors were willing to see them, and there was nothing going on. It's an interesting perspective that I've seen in other organizations, and I don't entirely understand it. I just think it's kind of sad. This evening there was a bit of a fiasco where we were supposed to have a meeting at 7:30 in our pharmacy, and when the kids showed up, another group of students were meeting in there and told them they had to leave because by standing there they were being disturbing. This didn't lead to a pleasant interaction with our leaders. I've been really impressed with our group of pre-health students, who have been working harder and longer hours than the other two groups here, and then getting treated pretty poorly by the other groups and their leaders, and they've stuck it out and keep working hard. Today was another example of how things are really poorly planned through an organization that thinks they have everything planned perfectly. The compound is plenty big enough to handle the number of people, if things were actually organized well. Things just really aren't. Anyway, my take away from all of this is the what to do's and what not to do's for a mission organization. The kids asked me to please never lose the heart in what I do as the reason behind my travels. I was impressed with that. And I'm glad they recognize it. I imagine that many of these people never thought they would "lose the heart," though maybe some of them joined into the stage beyond already. But it's interesting to see. There are definitely some good things I've seen here though, and I'm impressed with that they have a data informatics aspect and they analyze all their paperwork. I'm trying to get ahold of the analysis to see how they do it, and that could potentially be really helpful. That'll be my rant for the day. In short, again, eat the meat and spit out the bones, there just happen to be a lot of bones here. If any of the premeds ever read this, great job, really proud of you guys and the heart for the people that you've shown.
That's all for today. I'm glad we've at least gotten the chance to see a good amount of patients, give them good medical care, and love them through everything going on. The kids have been fantastic, and as usual, just being able to give them 5 minutes makes a huge difference in their life. Dr. Pilch has been fantastic, and is simultaneously seeing a ton of patients and helping me when I have questions, and teaching the students. I've learned a lot from her and have learned a lot from teaching the premeds as well. In the midst of all the craziness I'm just glad to be able to push through the noise and still do what I do for the reason that I do it. Maybe I can cast a stone into this water and make a ripple.....I can try, and if not in the organization, maybe within the community. If nothing else, we've hopefully impacted at least one life for the better.
Thanks for reading! Go Hawks!
(Clearly they are drinking too much coke...)
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