Clinic #3 – Mundungu, April 26/17
By day 3, we were a well oiled machine, loading the van, setting up and starting with minimal fusses. Everyday started with an introduction to the community leaders, a song and a prayer, to bless the day and all the people taking part in it. We rotated through triage, meds, learning opportunities, and assisting with various other tasks. Meds turned out to be a lot harder than I expected at the start. Just trying to locate the specific medication and correct dosing you were looking for was difficult... but then came all the (albeit basic but still challenging) math. We all seemed to catch on quick, because our brains were truly put to the test with pediatric dosing calculations. Thank goodness for the buddy system for checking medication orders. And really, if anything, a little organized chaos is the spice to life. That, and music. Sarah, one of the Kenyan nurses also provided us with the opportunity to see a birth control rod inserted into a patient's inner arm. The insertion itself was fairly straightforward, and nothing a little lidocaine couldn't fix. Lidocaine was inserted into the arm directly under the skin first to numb the area, and then a rod was inserted in to the…