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Trip Three: Week Five! July 20-26

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Five weeks down, eight to go! This week brought a little bit of much needed rest. Even though there were a couple of busy days in the OR, I overall felt like this week was not as overwhelming. At very short notice, an anesthetist was unable to come to the ship this week and next. Because of that, we are only able to run two operating rooms instead of three. While this will sadly cause a delay of surgery for a few of our patients, it allowed some of the longer term crew to have a bit of a break.  Two new general surgeons arrived over the weekend and will be staying for four weeks. One of them is American (Seattle) and the other is from Ethiopia. Tuesday was the general surgery screening day in the pre-op tent down on the dock. We saw almost 60 patients and evaluated whether or not they were a surgical candidate. The majority of the patients we saw had a hernia, hydrocele, or lipoma. There were a couple of patients who did not have a hernia, but who had been assessed earlier thi...
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Trip Three: Week Four! July 13-19

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  Four weeks down, nine to go!  It seems like each week my blog just talks about how busy I am, but each day really just feels so full!  On Monday, I went for a morning run before work with a few other girls from the ship. The discovery of the new road last year was one of the biggest blessings, and I so enjoy these morning runs. The sunrises are beautiful and running along the ocean is so peaceful.  Wednesday morning, the anesthesia in-service was put on by Dr. Marian, in an anesthetist from Australia. She spoke about traumatic brain injuries and how you can accurately assess patient status when they have a brain injury, and which steps to take next.  On Wednesday evening, there was the medical in-service put on by Dr. Erik, who spoke about craniofacial surgery and the extent of what we can do here on the ship. It was interesting! After the presentation, I went out to the dock and played volleyball with some other Crew for about an hour. It was my first time be...
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Trip Three: Week Three! July 6-12

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This week was truly a whirlwind, and it is hard to believe I have already been on the ship for three weeks!  On Monday, I actually worked in the MaxFax operating room! The arriving general surgeon had a day of patient screening before starting operations on Tuesday, so I helped out in another OR. I scrubbed into two MaxFax tumor/mass removal cases. The first one proved to be a bit more difficult than expected, but it was interesting getting to see another specialty again.  After a full day of work on Monday, many members of the leadership team had a patient review board meeting to discuss a difficult general surgery case scheduled for the following day.  Tuesday was a long and challenging day. Even though that difficult case overall went well, it was a bit of a stressful time. We did not have the equipment or resources the surgeons would have typically used at home, so we had to be creative in our approaches and solutions. There were two other cases to follow, and one of ...
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