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Monday, January 24, 2011

Heading down the home stretch

This past weekend was amazing as my fiance flew in and we were able to enjoy many of the resort perks as well as some time together. Amongst many other activities, we climbed the waterfall at Dunn's River Falls, took a trip on the glass bottom boat, and talked to the man selling shells. We also ate dinner at Eight Rivers/Bayside, both of which were excellent. I even managed to eat my entire meal at Bayside with chopsticks!

My Monday morning had a somewhat rocky start as the driver did not arrive until 9 AM. Then I received a phone call while at work that the resort thought I was leaving today and was looking for me. Oops, apparently my fiance's departure date had accidentally been recorded as mine as well! That was quickly fixed and the remainder of my day at Port Maria ran smoothly. Themes for the day were tinea, URI, and gastroenteritis although I also consulted on two inpatients; one with seizures and hypotonia in great need of a Pediatric Neurologist and the other with marked lymphadenitis.

Things I learned today or along the way:
Jamaican ambulances are staffed by a driver, a nurse, and a porter. They have nebulizer machines, oxygen, and scissors amongst other things on board. The few available ambulances remain busy transporting patients from home to the hospital in addition to hospital-to-hospital transfers for tests including x-rays!
Few families have paracetamol (tylenol) at home.
When an x-ray is ordered outpatient, it is generally given to the patient. This means a patient sometimes appears in clinic with xray or labwork in hand. Dockets (charts) are kept intra-facility while the patient may go to many facilities, so you may not have the reason behind the testing available.

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