What do I do?

So I’m a little tired right now, hoping to catch up on my sleep…eventually. I probably work at the hospital about 50hrs/week and then come home where there is more work: catching up on e-mails, helping out with visiting staff, working on equipment etc.  My days are very diverse. I don’t know what to expect each morning when I wake up but rarely am I bored.

To give you an idea about how I spend my time here’s what I have done in the past week:

·         Assisting with the ventilation of multiple patients from a 14 month old with ???, to a young OB patient with serious bleeding problems, to  the youth with ARD’s– and a few others.

•    Held babies – they are in ICU and crying, the nurses are busy so I make sure the child does not fall out of bed.
•  Gave blood – the patient was in severe need of blood with clotting ability, which here is only in fresh blood, so at midnight I gave her some.
•   Attended lectures on cardiac tamponade, pulse oximetery, hirshprungs disease.
•   Gave representatives from Coviden (medical company) a tour of the hospital
•  Practiced Swahili with the nurses over chai breaks – learned today that my pronunciation for understand(elewa) is to close to the word drunk (lewa) or married (olewa).
•    Fixed/trouble shooted ventilators
• Sorted supplies in the storage room
• Gave many informal lecture from CXR to Evac tubes
• Talked with a Dr from another hospital about their new ICU – I will probably visit there when they are running to provide education
•  Did CPR – I usually do this at least once a week if not more
•  Helped with Intubations
•  Weaned O2 on various patients
•  Helped out the physicians by finding lab results, taking verbal orders when the Dr is busy doing surgery, providing vent support
• Bagged patients – We don’t have a ventilator in ER so when we intubate some one needs to stand there and bag – usually end up being me.

I am sure I missed something but that gives you a general idea. I am on call 24/7 so while many of these things happen Monday-Friday between 7am and 5pm some happened at 5am or during supper on Sunday. And that is just fine.