Hispaniola is an interesting island. it lies in the caribbean sea and is divided into 2 countries, on the east coast there’s Dominican Republic, a country that nurtures baseball geniuses that eventually get signed by major league baseball clubs in the USA: examples are Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez, to name a few;
on the west coast there’s Haiti, where people can’t even hold a baseball bat properly.

My first ever overnight stay at a hospital as a patient was in a temporary tent hospital in Leogane, Haiti!

Okay so this is what actually happened:

2 nights ago I had the following symptoms:
fever and chills
severe headache
myalgia
nausea
dizziness
diarrhea (after 7 days of no bowel output)
general malaise
loss of appetite
postural hypotension
which were 100% suggestive of malaria

- Differential diagnoses
gastroenteritis: salmonella
amaebiasis
dengue fever

Couldn’t really fall asleep, and on my way to the toilet I met a staff and told her that I was feeling shit. she said another volunteer had been feeling funny too so we headed off to the a&e of the tent hospital where I helped out for the past week which is 3 minutes walk away…. only to find out that it’s closed for the night.

So we headed back to the basecamp, took some ibuprofen to symptomatically treat my headache and chills and TRIED to sleep.

The next morning I felt much better but by afternoon the same cluster of symptoms started to emerge again and I took my temperature. 38.8′C, 102F.

Last week a girl with 103F had to be evacuated by a helicopter to dominican republic (the neighbouring country with better health care), just 1 degree away n I get to ride a helicopter!

Anyway, I immediately talked to some other volunteers and they kindly walked me to the a&e, which was finally open.

The Haitian nurses there recognized me as a volunteer for the past week and greeted me with a wide smile. some American volunteer nurses were there and took a history from me. Noticing that I’m a pretty proficient historian (i.e. using medical jargons) they asked me what I do.

“4th year medical student”, I said

“oh very good! what are you planning to specialize in?”

“umm, orthopaedics” I have no idea how that came out of me so quickly

I told them that I was worried about malaria since I’ve been having all those symptoms. I have been taking Chloroquine as malaria prophylaxis, but it’s not always 100% effective especially with the rise of drug-resistant strains of Plasmodium falciparum – the most malignant strain of malaria parasites. It could have just been my chronic medical student syndrome though, but I’d still like a rapid malaria test just in case. Better safe than sorry.

They don’t have the luxury of those fingerprick pens like the ones we use for blood glucose. instead the nurse used a sterile needle and poked my finger directly.

“Wow you don’t really like to bleed, do u?” then she poked me again

They took my vitals, I was very tachycardic (120), tachypneic (20) and hypotensive. I didn’t even know that I was flushing until they told me so. I reminded them to rule out dehydration since I’ve been very well hydrated and electrolyte balanced since I have been making sure that I take in sufficient sodium as well as potassium. Good old oral rehydration solutions…

“Wow, you actually look much better than your signs and vitals!”

Yes. I am invincible.

15 minutes later the malaria test turned out to be negative. *phew*

their plan was to give me ciprofloxacin, broad spectrum antibiotics which basically covers most bugs causing gastroenteritis, metronidazole to cover amaebiasis or any protozoa/parasites (my god, metronidazole tastes even worse than aspirin!!!), and paracetamol for my fever and pain. and they want me to stay around until my temperature goes back to normal, ie. stay over night.

I forgot to bring my books over to read so I lied down and took a nap

“Hello, so are you that medical student from hong kong who wants to do orthopaedics?”

She was a korean-american orthopaedic surgeon.

“The nurses told me about you just now”

She then had a long chat with me about orthopaedics, problems women encounter in this field, and career advice in general.

‘You don’t have to be a beefy Olympic weight lifter to be an ortho surgeon, but u definitely can’t be weak and scrawny’

‘General surgeons hate us, because we work half as hard but earn twice as much’

‘Usually the smartest medical students go to orthopaedics since 1. it’s so competitive, 2. there is so much physics and mechanics behind;
then after a few years they turn out to be the stupidest of all doctors – forgetting all the drugs, not knowing the meaning of blood pressures, and everything’

Then we chatted about joining Medicins Sans Frontieres, balancing time between life as a doctor and family, everything. she even told me to join her at the ortho clinic the next morning!

so staying at the hospital for the night wasn’t so bad afterall!

a little update:

So this is Port-au-prince, capital of Haiti

Life still goes on…

Worked at a rubbling site one day, where we helped clear up collapsed buildings so that new houses can be built at that site again. Neighbourhood kids were so eager to help out!

Cheeky boys posing with my sunglasses

Haitian kids have the habit of greeting random passerby’s and foreigners by yelling
“HEY YOU!!!”
A British gentlemen from my group then corrected them
“In Britain, we say Excuse me”
An American dude then added
“In the States we say YO MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!!”

The orphanage

Art classes

A Haitian girl dancing

Spent a day training teachers on post traumatic stress disorders in children, disaster awareness, and art therapy which may assist in recovery of PTSD.

endless suturing

An orphaned premature (born at 7 months) haitian infant for adoption, safely bound by a mosquito net!

a 3 month old baby went to the xray department and stopped breathing (why did she end up in the xray department nobody knows) she was then brought to the a&e and was resuscitated for 31 minutes with no avail. no one knows the history of this baby and she doesn’t have a mother. she was brought in by a distant relative of her father’s cousin and had very severe abdominal distension. it was probably to late to save her. a doctor from msf came and picked up the body and the a&e became all quiet once again.

There was a little orphaned boy with an unknown rash at the paediatrics ward the other day. after ward rounds I stayed behind and played with him. he took my stethoscope and listened to the chest of his little playmate! when his guardian came and picked him up he held my hand and wanted me to go back to the orphanage with him!

then a little Haitian girl had fun playing with my stetho too!

Look at haiti’s future doctors!

ps I hate the way facebook distorts the hue and saturation and lowers the resolution of the photos I upload! Better quality photos and text will be available in my travel blog (yes I do have one) once I return to Hong Kong!