Week One done! It’s hard to believe.

This past week, I spent most of my time at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (“Queens” or QECH). At first, it was all a maze. Whereas in the United States, hospitals are built vertically, with the wards divided by floor, Queens is almost all one level only. This makes everything a little bit more spread out, but thankfully, we are limited to the Paediatric Ward (Malawi uses the British System, more on that later). For the first couple of days, we followed Shannon through the winding corridors and I thought that I would never learn my way around. Now we all know our way around, but one of our projects is to create a map for future interns and visitors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Map of QECH from Google Maps. Blue area is the Pediatric Ward)

 

For the most part, while at Queens, I have been shadowing a Registrar named Dominique. His role in the morning is to round in the Nursery, evaluating the stages of illness and prescribing treatment as necessary. Though I wish I could have been more helpful and hands on, I was still able to gain insight into how care is provided. This context is crucial for a successful design project, and I hope to use what I have seen and learned to help the design process back at Rice.

(Medical Devices at use in the Queens Neonatal Ward. Flow Splitter (top, center), Infusion Pump (top left), Oxygen Concentrator (on the floor) and two of the Rice bCPAPs front and center)

 

There’s a lot that on my mind can be improved. Whether it actually should be improved or not. For example the patient charts (although I use the word “chart” in a loose sense). In the neonatal ward, each patient chart starts with a vitals and medications page, kept by the nurses, and then is followed by a few pages of doctor’s notes, written on paper of various sources. The main “problem” I see is that patient charts are held together by either strip of bandage adhesive, or tied together with a strip of gauze. From my relatively wealthy perspective, I think “let’s get them a stapeler and a supply of staples, and they will have much neater records.” However, do they really need stapelers and would that even be the best solution for the problem? In this case, the gauze is handy because it is relatively easy to untie and add aditional pages can be added. Stapelers might just become more clutter to keep track of;

in this and other ways, simpler can be better.

 

In the next couple of weeks, I will shift away from working at Queens and start working more at the Malawi Polytechnic University, but it definitely has been a valuable experience, and I will write more latter.

 

British Medical System Terminology

Paediatrics -> Pediatrics

A&E (Accident and Emergency) -> Emergency Room

Registrar -> Fellow

Consultant -> Attending Physician

 

On a final note:

Mosquitos: 1  Caleb: 6