We’ll Call it a Night

I decided to have my first night on call Thursday with Dr. Bitchong. One of the main services we provide as students is a little break to the doctors. They normally have every 3rd night on call. I will see the first few patients with Dr. Bitchong, and then he will be able to go home and hopefully remain. I’ll just call him and discuss the rest of the patients and if it is something I can handle, he can go back to sleep. Our first call comes from the newborn nursery just as the day’s work is finishing. A baby was just born unable to breathe spontaneously. We go over to help with resuscitation, and a nurse is holding an ambu bag and manually ventilating the baby. He needs an IV and his veins are so tiny we have to enter through the umbilical vein in the umbilical cord. Our attempts to help the child to breath on his own remain unsuccessful and after 30 minutes we stop our efforts. Dr. Bitchong says the baby’s condition is probably secondary to HIV or syphilis in the mother. This is the first time I have seen a child dying.

Our next patient is in the ER. He is a 10-year-old boy who says he was in a tree and felt a snake bite his arm. They live in a rural village and almost 7 hours have past since the time he felt the bite. He appears healthy and no affected by poison. We ask, and he says he did not actually see a snake. His arm has a very small red spot. If he does not experience any symptoms in the first 7 hours, Dr. Bitchong says, either he was bitten by a non-poisonous snake or no snake at all. He explains the fear of snakes is very strong here. This is not an uncommon scenario. I find strange humor in the fact that fear of snakes is universal.

The rest of the night turns out to be pretty quiet. I saw a few patients in the evening, but was able to sleep soundly from 11pm to 4am-a luxury I’m not used to on call at UK. Then there are a few more patients in the early morning—mostly diarrhea, pneumonia, asthma attacks—but nothing serious enough for Dr. Bitchong to come in. I’m glad to give him a rest.

I’m looking forward to a rest as well. One has the afternoon off after their night on call. Clinton and I plan to venture out on the Kombi (minibus) to downtown Manzini today.