So I have now been home for about a week and have just about gotten my jet lag. For some reason it was a lot worse on the way back.
I wanted to finish narrating my last week in Vellore.
I only spoke of Monday on my last blog.
SO Tuesday I went on Nurses Rounds since the week before when I was on CHAD I did not get to and this was one of things I really wanted to do while here. I was still not feeling so well at this point, so was a bit nervous about going into the villages where there would really be no "bathroom" for me to use, plus being out in the hot sun all day. The last week we were here it got pretty warm on us -- about 85-90. Anyways, I went and started feeling better after having some hot tea one the village woman made for us. I was nervous to drink it, but was glad I did after. It seemed to soothe my stomach.
So Nurses Rounds consist of the Nurse, the Health Care Worker, a driver, a Nursing Student, and us foreigners in a SUV-like truck. The Nurses visit the homes of last trimester pregnancies, newborn babies, and other problems the Aide would like for her to see. They also have to do death reports, and so have to talk to the families and figure out what happened and what the person died of. The first village we visited a newborn baby has died after only a few hours of life, and so they were talking to the mother and rest of the family to see why this baby died.
The second village we visited had been named "Best Village in India" by the Predident. Every person in the village had been educated and they had different programs for the people so everyone had a job to do. I noticed in this village as well, that each home had some landscaping outside the house -- some roses or other flowers -- which was very different that other villages. They seemed a bit more developed and more wealth that other villages.
We visited 4 villages in all. During the day we saw alot of pre-natal visits, did some newborn education to a mother, gave out some medications, among other home visits.
I really enjoy getting to go to the homes and villages, as I got to see the way people live and get a better feel for the culture here. I thinked I learned more about cultural things than medical things on this day - which was awesome.
Thursday was a awesome day. We went to Kerigeri, the leprosy hospital. It treats all things now, since Leprosy is not as widespread as it was in the past.
So the scholarship I came over on is the Paul Brand Scholarship. So who is Paul Brand? He was a hand surgeon who did a tremendous amount of work in leprosy. He was a founding physician at Kerigeri. I have been reading one of his books, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. Paul is reading the biography about his life and Rebecca ready The Gift of Pain, which I hope to read after this book. It is really neat to read about the same places we are now standing back in history when some things were very different here and some things are pretty much the same.
The hospital here is a great place. Everyone is so friendly. We had to catch a bus at 7 am from the CMC Hospital to ride about 30 minutes out to the hospital. There were many stops along the way to pick up the nurses and doctors and take them out to the hospital. Kerigeri is outside of town - I think this was because when the hospital was built was when Leprosy patients were sent out from the cities.
We spent the morning at the outpatient clinic. There were 4 of us, so we split up and went to different specialties for about an hour and than rotated around.
I first spent some time with a physician who is a well-known leprosy clinician. She had Paul and I go learn what the PT and OT people did -- casting, making molds to take pressure off pressure points where patients' were getting ulceration from not being able to feel. Also we saw how they test the peripheral nerves - kind of similiar to diabetes peripheral neuosensory testing. It was pretty interesting.
We than saw some patients with the physician ( she was a dermatologist). We were able to see the depigmentation that occurs with leprosy, as well as feel many enlarged nerves from the bacteria causing inflammation of the nerves.
This was quite fascinating and something I will probaly never see again.
I also spent an hour with an Opthamologist. I never did opthomology during 3rd year, so this was really interesting to me. She let me look throught the slit- lamp, which was very cool. To really see each part of the eye magnified helped me to better understand what I am looking at when I look through my little scope.
We spent the afternoon at the actual hospital and had a lady from the Relations Department take us around - like our own personal tour. She took us to some of the research areas and were able to learn about some of the interesting research going on here. Including research on resistance to treatment, genetics of leprosy, and using rats to determine of treatment has been successful. Leprosy is not able to be grown in the lab like most bacteria, but it will grow in the feet of rats. So they inject the bacteria in the rats foot and follow the bacteria this way.
We also were able to see the leprosy wards, where they make the special shoes for the patients to help keep them from getting ulcers, as well as visited the shop where the people with leprosy make different products ( table cloths, dresses, and other things).
It was a great day and a nice way to end my time here. It was especially meaningful since this was the work of Paul Brand, who I am here because of.
Now being home and people ask how India was -- so many different emotions flood over me. It is a hard question to answer -- it's different than any other country and has taught me many things - about medicine, about culture, and about humanity.
