Ludzi (part II) and Senga Bay

After leaving Mtunthama on a sour note (see previous blog), I arrived in Lilongwe to meet up with Dr. Eskridge (the woman who helped me to organize this entire trip), her son Alex, Jade, and Carol. Jade is a 3rd year resident in Internal Medicine and Carol is a Physical Therapist who recieved funding from her church to go on a Mission trip. Dr. Eskridge as been coming to Malawi at once a year since 2004 and is a member for Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance (GAIA). I met her while I was studying at Cornell when she came as a representitive of GAIA to give a presentation on working as a Doctor in Malawi. GAIA formed in 2000 in response to the growing AIDS epidemic and decided solely to focus on Malawi.

When I met the new group we travelled to Ludzi Mission and visited the same group of Nuns that I started out on the trip visiting:-) It was really nice to see them again. While I was there I managed to visit my old patients that I first talked about -- the man with the worms and the poor lady with the presumed malignant tumor in her cheek (see previous blog post). The man with the worms is now cured from the worms, however he now complained of poor ability to breath (due to his smoking). The woman with the malignant tumor in her cheek, when Dr. Eskridge and Dr. Jade took a look at it determined that it was most likely Birkett's Lymphoma, which is quite common in people who are HIV/AIDS positive. Essentially it is the over production of B-Cell's (a cell that plays a part in the immune system). Unfortunately, there was nothing we could do for her other than to give her a few gauze pads to clean the open sores and reccomend to her to come to the health clinic for draining of the sores.

Following the trip with the Sisters at Ludzi, we travelled to Senga Bay to the Senga Baptist Clinic. It was a great experience! We joined a mobile clinic and went to the rural villages around the Salima yesterday (Tuesday 8-11-09) where we treated about 120 people. Of those people, I managed to treat 8 of them while Dr. Eskridge and Dr. Jade treated the rest. It was here, where I managed to diagnose, prescribe, and treat the patients all on my own (with close observation by Dr. Eskridge). It was a liberating experience. Of the patients I treated, two had eye sightproblems which were corrected with donated glasses from America, one women with an infection underneath her eyelid that was treated with antibiotic eye droplets (but really needed sugery), one patient with an ulcer in his stomach, and a rest treated with quinine for malaria.

The following day (today 8-12-09) we then spent time at the Senga Bay Baptist Clinic were we treated patients who came to the hospital. Again, I managed to treat patients with severe malaria, asthma, stomach ulcers, allergies, Bilharzia, and worms. The trip was a wondeful trip as I was finally able to take all of the knowledge that I learned at the beginning of this trip and begin to treat patients. I really enjoyed it. You can see pictures at the following link. Here are two other pictures (here and here) from the American doctors camera as well of our trip.