Today I took a break from the wards to spend the day in the brand new pulmonary clinic. As you may (or may not) know, the lungs are my favorite organ and I briefly (or not so briefly) entertained the idea of going into pulmonology. This clinic just started a few weeks ago and already has 47 patients enrolled. They are going to have the capability to do pulmonary function testing next week, which is the primary way asthma/COPD and some other lung diseases can be diagnosed. Today I sat in the tiny clinic room with Dan, a now-attending who was resident last year, his nurse, and three nursing students as each patient was called in. Generally they carried their own medical record from home, as well as any chest x-rays or CT scans they had had done at other facilities. Then we would review their records, examine them, and review their scans. Today there were 2 cases of severe asthma, one likely COPD, one interstitial lung disease, one likely MDRTB (multi-drug resistant TB) or malignancy, and a few folks that had chest pain that wound up being from a cause other than the lungs. It was a lot of fun, and since Dan is a regular internal medicine doc just doing this clinic out of the goodness of his heart and not because he’s specialized, I was able to teach him a few helpful things. Subsequently I got recruited to teach him and possibly the residents how to interpret those pulmonary function tests that they will start next week.
After clinic it was time for lunch. There are two places to get lunch in the hospital; one by the river and the other in the HIV clinic. The river canteen is more popular with the residents, but the HIV clinic canteen has much better food. It’s always a tough choice, but I usually pick the HIV clinic. Today I had beans and rice with a side of squash and greens. The greens are my favorite part, even though each bite gives small crunch like sand I figure is dirt. But they use them more as “decoration” or “accompaniment” and seem confused when I want more of them. Oh and don’t forget freshly squeezed pineapple juice. The juice changes daily and is amazing … but it might be perhaps why I have:
It’s not bothering me too much, so I’m probably going to
keep the juice going. It’s just so
daggum good! We had lunch today with
Okello, one of the attendings here.
Christina from my residency program arrived yesterday, and since she was
new he wanted to take us on an extended tour of the hospital after lunch. We saw everything from the HIV pharmacy to
the private patient ward, where you pay more to get a private room, to the new
cancer center, which is basically just a humble concrete building with a few
cots and IV poles for infusion chemotherapy.
After that it was getting late in the afternoon and we headed home to go
for an evening walk before the rains came.
Once we got hungry, we were thinking of cooking, but Emily reminded us
of the love of roasted pork that most Ugandans have. We called a taxi and drove a mile or two down
the road to a restaurant called Diners.
It was a humble concrete awning with a bar, next to another concrete
building with smoke billowing out of it.
We ordered a few sticks of roasted pork each, along with chips (fries)
and salad, and about 30 minutes after the smoke furiously billowed out of that
building, our dinner arrived. Meanwhile
we enjoyed watching some Ugandan soap opera/musicals on the television at the
bar. The pork was delicious while
somewhat tough, and we stuffed our faces and came home to bed!
Since Easter holiday consists of Easter Thur/Fri/Sat/Sun/Monday in Uganda, all of which are public holidays, Christina and I have decided to take a little trip to a place called Lake Bunyonyi. I'll be taking my fancy camera and will hopefully have some good pictures for you!
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