Week One Draws to a Close

It has been a week of adjustments and orientation. Kijabe Hospital is a very well equipped facilty with a rich resource of equipment and personnel. Their OR (Theatre) runs 5 rooms most days using trained nurse anesthetists supervised by a single anesthesiologist. I am here providing him the opportunity to enjoy a short vacation with his family during the school break. Though all of their equipment is donated, they have an image intensifier in the OR to do complicated orthopedic procedures, have laparoscopic equipment, fiberoptic brochoscopes, piped oxygen and nitrous oxide, pulse oximeters and end tidal CO2.

As the anesthesiologist, I am slated to the ICU call slate and find myself way over my head in an area that I haven't worked in since my residency training 10 years ago. We have had very ill patients and I have had to complete death certificates on each of my ICU shifts. Yesterday an eleven year old girl died from respiratory failure from severe sepsis after 4 cardiac arrests through the day. Today we had one policeman die in ICU from a gunshot wound to the head and two others admitted to the ICU with gunshot related vascular injuries to their leg all over a disagreement over the price of a load of carrots.

The support from the other medical staff has been excellent but it has been a stretch for me. I'll get a bit of a break with the intensivist returning tomorrow. I look forward to a little quieter week with many of the surgeons gone to a meeting in Mombassa.

We saw a monkey on the way to church today. He ran acros the roof of the AIC Church hall then scampered through the trees and was gone...

Gary