Monday, May 25th:
The team has now flown to Mwanza, which is a beautiful city by Lake Victoria. Ralph, Julie and I arrived on Sunday and the rest of the team arrived with Julius on Monday. As I always tell my team members, we are coming to do God's work in Tanzania and we are here to serve. Well serve we did today! Dr. Isidor arrived bright and early and we went to Bugando Medical Centre, which is a 1000 bed hospital. We first went to meet the Director General (head of the hospital) to introduce ourselves and we were graciously welcomed.
We then went to the orthopedic morning report, which consisted of all the residents and medical students and then Dr. Isidore, the head of orthopedics. We listened to the report of the patients that were admitted over the weekend and evening. We reviewed the x-rays and Isidore questioned the resident about the patient. Isidor then asked for Ralph's opinion on the patients and he is such a wonderful teacher and explained everything to the doctors and students who were present. This is a big part of Hope Ministries, in which we want to teach, so that we hopefully will leave a lasting impact in the medical world.
We then went to the orthopedic ward to see a patient. There was a patient who was in an accident and had a neck fracture that Ralph looked at. We then went to clinic. As we turned the corner the lobby was filled with patients for us to see. Then the work began. Dr. Gerald, is a resident doctor, who is responsible for the head and cranial problems, so we saw his patients first. Then Dr. Isidore had many spine patients. Ralph was excellent in reviewing and teaching the doctors assessments and how to read the films and what to look for. We saw many, many patients and then started to from our surgical schedule for the week. At one point Julie and I went out into the clinic lobby and were overwhelmed with the number of patients that were waiting to see us. There was even an overflow out into the hallway. Wow!!!
We spent the entire day seeing patients and the surgical schedule kept getting longer and many patients were given other interventions. We saw a little one month old baby that had a very large tumor protruding from the base of her skull. After assessing and reviewing her films, it was concluded that she had a very bad tumor and it was not operable. She was such a beautiful little girl. It started out as a small mass and was growing very quickly. These are the hard cases…when you have no hope to offer them and they are looking to you for it. My heart was breaking as I watched this mom look at her sweet baby. It was a long day with standing on your feet and no food, but we came to work and that we did. Finally around 2:30 Dr. Isidore said we have to take a break, so we went and had something to drink and eat.
Throughout the day the doctors pulled me aside, and said "Gayle you need to keep bringing Ralph back to Tanzania". They all said they were learning so much from him and what a patient and wonderful teacher he is. We will all pray that God is planting a seed in his heart for mission work and that he will return. We went to OR to unpack all the surgical instruments that we brought and identified the ones we would need for surgery the next day. The doctors were excited to see all the wonderful surgical equipment that we brought! Thanks to Mike Boose again for all your assistance in helping us get this equipment. You are awesome!
We went back to the lodge and the rest of the team was back from safari. They were filled with smiles, stories and pictures of their wonderful time on safari. We invited Dr. Gerald and Dr. Isidore to supper with us so we could discuss any of the cases we were going to do and concerns about any postop complications and how we would handle them.
I think Ralph is going to see a hugh different (many some culture shock) when he sees the OR rooms. We went and saw the ICU so Ralph could see the equipment and what they had to take care of the postop patients. Please pray for us as we go to do surgeries tomorrow.
