OB/GYN and some fun dinners!!

This week I am rounding with the OB/GYN team at Selian. It’s a nice change to do something totally different! We begin our mornings rounding in the labor and delivery ward. The patients who gave birth the day before or overnight are in bed resting with their babies. They have to wait 24 hours after delivering to be discharged, so we ask them about bleeding and check their uterus size. In this same ward are any other pregnant admits. They have a variety of medical conditions, but we’ve mostly seen malaria, UTIs, pneumonia, and premature labor. We are able to order ultrasounds for dating, but it is questionable how accurate these are. The interns estimate gestation by checking fundal heights and we listen to fetal heart tones with this hilarious stethoscope with a cone that you press into the abdomen with your forehead. I’m going to have to try to get a picture of this because words just don’t do it justice! We then check on any women who are in active labor. Today two women had spontaneous abortions of twins, one was about 23 weeks and the other 25. There is nothing we can do to try to save babies that premature, so it is very sad. The women and doctors here are accustomed to this. For one woman this was her 9th pregnancy and the other it was her 5th.

After finishing with labor and delivery we go to the GYN ward and round on women who are pre or post-surgical or have gynecologic complaints. There they deal with problems like vesico-vaginal fistulas, urinary incontinence, and PID. On Monday we saw a patient in her 60s with advanced stage cervical cancer. The Tanzania doctor asked me how we deal with this in the states and I had to tell him that we rarely see it anymore because of pap smears, HPV testing, and other preventative measures. He was shocked! The patient died overnight.

On Monday night we met three doctors that Christine knows at Arumeru Safari Lodge for dinner. They are in town for a 7 day Kili climb and a safari. One is an ER doc, one an anesthesiologist, and the other an ophthalmologist. We had a great evening and they enjoyed hearing all of our stories from the hospital.

On Tuesday night, Katie and I were invited to Praygod’s, a Tanzanian intern, home for dinner. It was a wonderful cultural experience! We were introduced to his entire family and they were very welcoming. We talked and watched East African TV for about 1.5 hours while dinner was being prepared. The food was brought in along with a pitcher of warm water and a basin to wash our hands in. We dished up fried bananas, potatoes, goat stew, and fresh fruit and then realized that there was no silverware! Tanzanians eat with their hands, but at most restaurants they have silverware for the wazungu (white people). Not here! We ate as politely as possible with our hands and the food was wonderful. We said our thank-yous and goodbyes and Praygod drove us back to our house.