Medical Realities

I spent the first month of my time in Cameroon shadowing and working with fellow Mission Doctors Dr. Brent Burket and Dr. Jennifer Theone, as well as Dr. Eugene Chiabi, a Cameroonian physician and the Chief Medical Officer here at St. Martin de Porres Catholic Mission Hospital.  One thing I have learned is that the daily highs and lows of hospital medicine are so much more pronounced here in Cameroon, compared to at home in the US.  Nothing is routine here. 

For the last two weeks, I have been working solo, doing daily rounds on the Female Medical Ward, the Pediatrics Ward, and the Nursery/NICU.  It has been a hard introduction into the realities of practicing medicine in a developing country.  I had three babies die within a week of each other.  One newborn and two 8-month-old babies, and I couldn't do anything to save them.  If they were in the US, they would have been in the ICU, on ventilators, with all sorts of IV lines and medicines, and they may have lived.  But that technology is not available here. 

On the other hand, I was able to discharge a child who was admitted with malaria meningitis.  He came in with seizures, unconscious.  Now he smiles all the time, and is acting as mischievous as any 4 year old.  Sometimes I'm amazed at what medicine can do, and other times I'm furious that it can't do enough.  I'm only 2 months in, and already it's so much harder than I had imagined.  God is teaching me a hard lesson in my own limitations.