10.03.2020 Milestone: 100 & 101

Back to work!  After some adventurous times off (hours of road travel and a few car breakdowns later) it is back to helping out the women at the clinic.  This patient was showing signs of amnion infection and with a stagnated birth process we decided delivery by caesarian would be best.

Case 100!!! 

We finally have a new doctor! Jean Joselitto who started work less than a week ago is assisting me for the first time.  He is a trained general doctor who also has performed around 30 C-sections.  I was thrilled to have another pair of trained surgical hands to work with.  He speaks only french and malagassy, so I am being tested on my medical french, which is not exactly easy when trying to focus on surgery, but all went well.  Tanja is taking on the role as our operating room nurse, having been trained by our german operating room nurse Anna.

Baby Mandrindra (Baby 100 for me :)

Guava season has started!  

Enjoying my lunch break before continuing my shift

Well I had planned to be able to enjoy my milestone a bit but it didn't take long before difficulties in the labor and delivery room presented.  This little one had signs of fetal distress in the CTG and also signs of infection that most likely would not have fared well with a vaginal delivery.  It is really strange but during the rainy season there seems to be a high rate of infection according to the project leader and midwife Tanja. We recently had a few days of heavy rain while I was gone so there seems to be some correlation.  At the beginning of my stay there was a disproportional amount of c-sections necessary for this reason and those children were so sick they needed intensive care and antibiotics.  These two from today thankfully needed only a little support and were better than expected.

Baby girl Kaila (#10 C-section in Madagaskar and # 101 overall) and me with the team of midwives: 

Tanja, Rachel (from the Netherlands) and Laura (Hamburg)

Very happy with our successful day of operations.  Needless to say there were regular general doctor office hours taking place, dentist appointments and prenatal as well as after natal care with vaccinations taking place all at the same time.  My job is only a small one in the grand scheme of things but I'm very much enjoying the opportunity to work with some really great people.