a stretch

It's been a hard experience playing at being the only doctor in town
here at Chitokoloki so far. One of the things I've been really grateful
for at Mukinge is the opportunity to do things as a team and bounce
ideas off the other doctors. I can call on the knowledge and experience
of the other ones working there, whether the nursing staff who has seen
so many things, the other doctors which draw from a wealth of different
medical experience than me, or the advice from people from home. One of
the really difficult things that I find about medical work in Africa is
that often times it feels like you're groping around in the dark without
much idea where you are going; this is a stressful experience when lots
is at stake but having other people's hands to hold while you wander
around in the dark makes it more bearable.
Up here, it feels like I'm on my own to screw up or do well, and I've
been faced with opportunities that are past my training. Some of it is
just the struggle of trying to find what you need in a hospital that you
are not familiar with; here they are more concerned with theft than we
need to be at Mukinge so lots of equipment is squirrel away in places
that are locked or hidden, making it difficult to find in an emergency.
I've also had some problems which I've never been asked to solve before
-- for example, the local Zambian hospital was doing a hernia operation
and ran into complications, so they asked me to fix the problem, which
turned out to be a large hole in the bladder. Considering I don't even
consider myself trained to do a routine hernia, trying to fix the
problems in someone else's complicated hernia was asking a bit much.
But I did my best, and the guy is doing well. Another case, a 6 month
old with a bone infection, I've been hesitating about taking to the OR,
but will probably have my hand forced soon.
Anyway, I've realized the crutch of having other people to lean on here
for the past few days. I think that this year will continue to be
tricky at times as people come and go and I lose a bit of that safety
net. I mostly need to take advantage of the opportunity to learn from
people when I can.