Friday, April 22, 2011



This year on the ship my title is "Out patient Nurse" a nurse who provides routine post-operative wound care and follow-up for outpatients following discharge from the surgical ward. Follow up includes: wound checks, sutures, nasal bolsters , whiteheads pack removal, dressing changes as well as a variety of other interesting treatments such as colloid treatment injections, crawford tubes and evacuation of hematomas.
The Out patient department has a gradual start up as more and more patients are discharged after their surgeries. So when the assistant screening co-coordinator went home I was able to fill the position for the weeks I have been in Sierra Leone thus far. I have enjoyed this role. The screening co-coordinator is often the first contact a patient has with the ship. It requires some decision making and about 4365 trips up and down the gang way each day, for a variety of treatments for the patients before and after they have seen the surgeons to decide if they are indeed a good surgical candidate. Often patients with tumours or any kind of growth need to have a small section of the tumour or growth removed. The patients are than instructed to go home and return in approximately three weeks when the histology reports come back and it is determined if they are surgical candidates. Often the news is good and they are booked for surgery however there have been several that have also been referred to palliative care due to a variety of reasons the most common being cancer. Today a young girl, age 13 with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a twenty eight year old with cancer as well. Dr.Parker our chief surgereon does not have an explanation as to why there seems to be a higher incidence of cancer here in West Africa. His comment as we reviewed many of the histology reports was,
"Lord Jesus comes quickly."

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