The Week at Nkhoma:

A lot has happened in Malawi since my last blog post on Tuesday! Here is the Reader’s Digest version of my week at the Nkhoma Hospital:


Wednesday: I again did ward rounds with Dr. Morton in the Pediatrics ward. We had 23 children currently admitted for the measles. This outbreak is surprising because the Malawi government claims that over 90% of the population has been vaccinated against the measles. Either this data is not up-to-date or there is some failure in the effectiveness of the vaccines that are being administered.
I also observed Will, Jenn’s husband, as he performed his eye surgeries in the afternoon. I spent 3 hours in Operating Theater with Will and saw 3 different surgeries. I was observed both a glaucoma and a cataract surgery. The precision with which the eye surgeries are performed was absolutely amazing. It was very interesting to be able to see all of the ocular anatomy I learned from Father Burns with my own eyes on a actual patient through the microscope.

Thursday: Jenn and I had to cancel the hand contracture release surgery because the patient was first missing and then abandoned the hospital. The nurses told us that the Mom became scared that the anesthesia would harm the baby and the baby would be unable to wake up after the surgery, and her fear caused her to leave the hospital. This is a problem that Jenn often faces with her burn patients because they don’t understand the operations and the words used to explain them are very foreign.
Instead of surgery, I rounded on the male and female (also known as general or medical) wards with Dr. Rhona, a doctor from England. We saw patients with a wide range of conditions. Some of the interesting patients were stroke victims, a woman with Congestive Heart Failure, and a young girl with nephrotic syndrome and systemic edema as a result. In the afternoon I worked on a presentation about burn wound contractures around joints, which I will present the last week I am here to the first year Malawian nursing students.

Friday: I observed a skin graft on a bilateral leg burn patient. Jenn did an awesome job and the surgery was amazing. She harvested skin from donor sites on the patient’s thighs, meshed it with the skin mesher so it would cover a greater area, and then grafted the skin onto the burn wounds on the patient’s lower legs. Jenn then sutured the skin grafts to the borders of the wound and then to each other in the central areas. The wounds and the donor sites were then dressed and splinted over the left knee, to help avoid joint contracture at the burn wounds heal. Today was an awesome experience that made me want to further explore surgery as a possibility in the future of my career!

Weekend: Camping adventure to Lake Malawi! It should be a nice, relaxing weekend away from the hospital.
Thanks for reading!