December 8, 2009

Medical Outreach Day 3 – Regbad

Dr. Rafi is explaining about the medicine to the patient.

This was our third day of Medical Outreach, and we were excited! =)

Today, we saw 246 people and among them, we had 51 females. There were no other doctors other than us, so we were able to treat females ourselves. Well, it was Dr. Rafi who treated females. I assisted him with minor work and kept my patient logs straight. I did not even think about engaging in treating the females. It was just as exciting being there to experience the atmosphere and culture together. That was awesome, and I loved every part of it!

Females were dressed to cover up from head to toe which was expected. Many of the females were complaining of minor aches and pains, back pain, common cold symptoms, itchiness, muscle pain, indigestion, etc. So, we were able to provide them with common over-the-counter drugs. If we needed to, we politely referred them to local medical doctors.

Today, we used a local elder’s house to see patients. The elder was generous enough to provide us a guest room for treatment that allowed us to see females as well. I was very surprised at first about it, but very thankful. =) Dr. Rafi asked the elder to help us with crowd control, and I think it worked out well, because the elder took the job very seriously and did an excellent job corralling the masses, although I have to admit that he may have been overly excited just a bit. His voice was very loud and did not calm down until the end. He was a very energetic and helpful man and I feel I should acknowledge his assistance. Thank you, elder, sir, for your great job and kind support! =)

We were allowed to see female patients ourselves. Thanks!

The elder brought in all 51 female patients at once after Dr. Rafi had seen all the male patients; he had the females wait in a small crowded room instead of having them stand in line out on the street like the male patients did where they could be seen by other male strangers. This sort of thing was understandable due to the predominate beliefs in Afghanistan culture. The females sat on the dirt ground and waited while Dr. Rafi saw them one patient at a time. Towards the end, the females got a little crowded, but other than that everything went well. They must have been agitated squatting down and waiting for a long time.
While we were seeing patients inside, soldiers outside handed people FREE food and Brooks (corpsman) and Coffey (medic) triaged people before they were brought in to us.

Again the FREE food was favored by everyone in the village. =)
One of the children brought in to us had a burn on his leg that was left untreated for some time. We tried to ask what happened to it, but he could not answer. It was an infected burn. I cleaned it up as much as I could and cut out all the dead skin around it; then dressed it with clean gauze. We gave him some medication and sent him home. He was very scared as I started to cut away his skin, but tried to smile back at me from time to time when I looked up to see his face. The wound was infected and there was a lot of pus; the smell was so bad it lasted the entire time we were inside that room. Had he got medical attention immediately and got treated to cut out the dead skin; he would not have had that issue.

People, waiting to see the Doctor!!

Over the last three days, we have seen over 800 people and we ran out of most of our med supplies. At CPT Kramer’s suggestion, I called up to our Chain of Command and asked for support. They immediately sent down a med chest of Afghan medication. Which was good enough to last until the last day. Thanks for the last minute support!

This kid had a bad infection on his foot.

Cutting away the dead skin! Pray that he will be healed quickly.

Coffey (medic) examining a man's heart.

Brooks (Corpsman) is examining a kid.

SFC Love is handing out FREE food to a kid.