Electiveness...

Hey Hey Everyone!
I finally made the dial up at Good Shepherd work- it takes a bit of perserverance and patience, two qualities that I generally don't have, but am learning!
So I've finished my first week of elective here. It's been super hard. The medicine here is completely different to home, as I expected, and it's amazing how much you can forget in 2 weeks since finishing exams!
I've been working in a lot of different places, trying to get a general overview of tropical medicine. The three most common diagnoses here are HIV disease, TB and malaria (as opposed to MI, cancer, lung disease at home). I've seen STACKS of this, and also a lot of diabetes (which is very poorly controlled here and people are going blind and losing feet very quickly), strokes and trauma from the usual brawls of the holiday season and domestic violence.
It's been very eye opening. Here, because I'm a final year they treat me just like a doctor, so I can sign off on xrays, prescribe drugs and see patients on my own. Which I would find less daunting if they had diseases I knew about!!! I'm getting the hang of it though!
I'll put some photos up later of the busyness of this place. A typical day in outpatients we see around 250 patients between about 3 doctors (sometimes more). Nurses are given more responsibility here, so they help with the load too. People line up from around 6 in the morning for the outpatient department to open at 8am, and it is possible that if someone isn't keeping an eye on things people are so sick they could die just waiting to see a doctor. Fortunately, the orderly's are on the ball and recognise the sickest people and push them to the front.
I've also been allowed to do lumbar punctures and abdominal paracentesis' for the meddies out there. Not as hard as I thought- although septic technique here leaves a lot to be desired.
So I've had a great week here. I'm loving the work. I start at 8 un the morning and finish between four and five, with a mandatory 1 hour lunch break (everything stops at this hospital for lunch, it's incane!). I have a great little house on the hospital site, which has TV (a bonus!) and stacks of books to read, so I'm entertaining myself well! There's rumours I'm getting some housemates this week, which will be great, but I'm not getting my hopes up too high!
Last night I spent NYE at a country club in Simonye, a town about 45 minutes drive from here in Siteki with a nurse and his family. They are a great bunch, and I had a great time. They are Rwandan, and I was up until the wee hours of this morning learning to dance to traditional Rwandan music and laughing hysterically at myself... Much preferable to my usual watching the lame Burnie fireworks and going to bed at 12.15!
Fireworks here are dangerous....everyone goes out and buys there own, and lights them themselves. We didn't have any accidents, but I was terrified someone was going to hurt themselves!
So I'm having a good time, getting through the loneliness now I have a job to do! tomorrow I'm going back to the main tourist part of Swaziland to meet a friend I met in South Africa, and to go to the traditional Incwala festival, which is on Monday (a public holiday...WOO double long weekend!). I'll let you know how it goes!
See you all soon
Louise