Sunday, 14 July 2013

Week One Reflections

I have been in India for one week.  I finally feel like I am settling into Dehradun and tomorrow we leave for the village of Patti.  I am thankful I will be back here again, when I can further explore the city of 300,000.

I have completed my first rotations with two local doctors.  One is an ob/gyn and she was nice enough to allow us to attend a planned c-section earlier today.  This is the third operation I have seen performed  in India.  It is a little strange having my first surgical experiences here instead of in the United States.  I can only imagine how different it is.  All of the nurses wear sandals (ie open toed shoes) that stay in the surgical ward.  No one except the doctor and the nurse who is helping her wears gloves.  The surgical ward I observed is in a small little private hospital run by the one ob/gyn.  She has about 5 inpatient rooms, a delivery room and a operation room.  She lives upstairs.
OB/GYN surgical room

The other doctor is a cardiologist who also has his own hospital.  He has more rooms as well as an ER with about 7 beds in it.  He sees out patients in his office at the hospital.  He performs ECGs on the majority of his patients, whether inpatient or outpatient.  He kindly gave us a crash course in ECG readings and then took us to the ward where we could see abnormal ECGs and listen to the heart and lungs of the patients.  The speed with which he reads ECGs and listens to his patients' hearts and lungs is mind boggling.  He listens through the patients clothes.  If a female patient wants an ECG, he has a female tech perform it since she needs to lift up the patients kameez.

OB/GYN office.  Patients sit on the stool with the doctor at the desk.
Family members sit in the chairs.
Patient privacy is a little different in India than in the States.  The patient rarely if ever comes to the doctor alone, often the entire family comes in tow.  Nurses and managerial staff burst into the office anytime and will stand there waiting until the doctor acknowledges them.  The doctor answers his cell phone any time it rings and is constantly talking on the phone with another patient while another is waiting by his side.  The doctor spends 5-10 minutes with the patient before prescribing medications.  Almost everyone gets prescribed something (even if it's Vit C).


Next week will be spent in a rural clinic with one doctor.  I am very interested to see the difference between private city hospitals that the middle and upper class frequent and the rural clinics.

No comments:

Post a Comment