We started the day by having breakfast at 7:30 am and going to morning prayer at 7:45 am. All the prayers were sung and spoken in Tamil, so we had no clue what they were saying. But, it was pretty to listen to. After morning prayer was over, Dr. Muralidar introduced us to all of the staff and a local medical student named Aringtu (sp?). In India, medical school lasts for 5 and a half years as it includes one year of internship. Rintou is waiting to hear back about which internship program she got into and will be at Bethany Medical Centre as part of requirement for her program for a month. We then headed to the inpatient ward and met with Dr. Muralidar and Dr. Clement for rounds. We saw two sickle cell anemia patients, some with uncontrolled diabetes, heart conditions etc. In the middle of rounds, however, Kristen started to feel fainty and went super pale. We brought her to the ICU unit and I sat with her while she was lying down. It is very humid here compared to Chicago and the ward was a little hot, so I think the combination of heat and humidity got to her. She wasn't feeling better even after half an hour so she went back to her room to rest. In the meantime, the group was divided into three groups for different activities. Gina and I stayed at the ward to choose patients to do case presentations on while Jen and Keiko went to shadow Dr. Muralidar's wife, Dr. Muralidar who is a gynecologist, and Derick and Christine went to shadow Dr. Clement who was originally trained in orthopedic surgery. Gina chose the patient with atrial fibrillation and I chose the boy with sickle cell anemia. I took a detailed history of the patient with Rintou's help as she translated everything for me. At first, I thought this boy was at most 8 or 9 years old. Turned out he was 15. Gina and I thought he was malnourished, but Rintou said he wasn't. We were able to see why as all of his family members were tiny. As I was taking his family history, we learned that his parents were 1st degree relatives aka brother and sister. I asked if this was common in his tribe and he said no. We drew a pedigree tree together, which I hadn't done since the first week of medical school. Rintou also walked me and Gina through different physical exams and the sequence through which we should be performing them, and it was extremely helpful. After I was done with my patient, we moved onto Gina's patient. He was originally admitted for abdominal pain and constipation, but atrial fibrillation was discovered upon physical exam. We felt bad about prodding the patient so much, but we learned a ton and it was very cool to be able to apply what we learned from this past year. Afterwards, we headed to lunch and saw everyone. Jen and Keiko said there was a girl in labor and they would get to see the delivery. Christine and Derick said Dr. Clement was awesome and that they got to see patients of various conditions. Although he was trained in orthopedic surgery, he is now retired and sees regular patients who come through the ER here. After lunch, we headed back to our rooms and rested a little bit. Jen and Keiko were called when the girl in labor was about to give birth, and Derick and Christine went along with them. They said they actually missed the delivery part by a few seconds, but got to see the placenta being taken out, which apparently was huge. We then went to dinner and evening prayer. Afterwards, we did evening rounds in the maternity ward with Dr. Muralidar. When we were done, Dr. Muralidar said he would wake us up if there was any emergency case overnight. We came back to our rooms and played cards till we went to sleep.
Although it was only our first day, I felt like we learned a lot. All the doctors here are great
teachers and explain everything to us in detail. The nursing staff are also very friendly and
helpful. Everyone has been welcoming and trying to make us feel at home. I wish that we were more clinically capable so that we could actually help them more, but I think they like having students to teach. And, observing how medicine is done in an environment that lacks resources has been eye-opening. They rely heavily on their physical exam skills, rather than lab results. I'm hoping that this experience will help me hone these skills and teach me how to think critically and resourcefully. I'm looking forward to the next 9 days that we have here. Anyway, thanks for reading!
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