St.Mary's

Sorry I didn't write yesterday, Regina and I went to do our laundry and we have to time everything that we do according to when it gets dark and making sure we have someone walking with us because it isn't very safe where we live.

Today and yesterday I worked with a young Pediatric doctor, she is probably 28 and VERY nice. All she wanted to do was teach us! I got to see about 50 chest xrays to check for TB etc. It was amazing.

I decided to work with Dr.Khose again today (usually we rotate) because of all that I got to see yesterday. I had a really tough time though. One boy that we saw is 10 years old and about Sterling's (my brother) height and age. He has AIDS. His mother died several years ago. Two weeks ago he was diagnosed with cryptococcal meningitis and it looked like today the antibiotics he was given did not clear the infection. He was in so much pain and could barely speak. The only words he could get out were to tell the doctor he didn't want to stay in the hospital. I don't think I have ever been so close to tears with a patient.

It is very frustrating here to see the young babies and children here because probably 8 out of 10 of them have HIV/AIDS or TB. It is so hard to see them suffer like this and you just want to shake the mothers and tell them to get tested, to be safe, to go on ARVs. I can see why they have a shortage of doctors here. In the short time we were at St.Mary's two doctors quit (including Dr.Khose who gave her one month notice today). Dr. Khose said that she feels as though she is fighting an uphill battle and she doesn't know where to begin to try to stop the spread of AIDS.

When Dr.Khose asked about what problems we see in America, one of the other students, Ben, said it very appropriately: "preventative diseases" (such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, etc--this is not to say that cancer is not a problem in the US). Yet it could also be argued that AIDS is preventable if the right precautions are taken. I am learning that so much of medicine is based on the cultural practices of the patients being treated. We can shout it to the mountain tops to tell people to exercise and eat well in the US and similarly doctors here can ask over and over for HIV tests to be taken on a wider scale but if the patients don't comply the doctors are backed into a corner.

Thank you all for your comments. Tonight Regina and I leave for the wedding with mama. Last night we went out to dinner with everyone on the program and a South African medical student we work with at St.Mary's. Sunday we are going to the beach and then my family is having a birthday party for me and a bunch of the people from our program are coming out.

I am going to try to come here early Sunday morning to load up pictures. My love to all of you.