Market and Success

I went to the market yesterday morning at 545am to see what was going on. My observations: a lot! It felt like it was midday as people scurried all over the place, selling fresh fish, meats, fruits and vegetables, spices, and any houseware items you could think of. The highlights for me included river rat (with live killings by smashing the rats on a rock while holding their tail, thus giving them an immediate cerebral hemorrhage and severed spinal cord, followed by skinning, and de-gutting), pigs heads and intestines, snake, frog, turtle and cockroach, and various types of river fish. They also had every type of meat product you could possibly imagine. It’s interesting to me that the people here, and pretty much everywhere but America, are able to consume nearly the entire animal whereas we are not programmed/taught to do that. I understand that some people in the U.S. eat other parts of the animals than just legs, wings, breast, cuts of steak, etc, but, EVERYONE here does it, not a select few. It’s just more efficient and produces less waste.

The cleft lip/palate procedures that we have been carrying out have been going very smoothly without any complications. Each day has been more successful than the previous, and the families have all shown such great gratitude. It’s amazing how much of a difference a 1 hour procedure can make. For these kids who were looked at as outcasts, after a 1 hour procedure, they regained an opportunity at having a childhood again.

So I have been acting as a scrub tech, who is the person that is in charge of giving all of the instruments and sutures to the surgeons. This has been a very valuable experience as I have learned all the names of the instruments and have gained experience loading needles and understanding the perspective of a scrub tech, with whom I will inevitably work with in my career since ob/gyn’s do a significant amount of surgery.

Anyways, I gotta run. It’s time to go eat some Pho for breakfast and get over to the hospital. We’ve got a long day today with 6 procedures on each table!

Peace Signs on the Street

Fruit at the Market

Bike at sunrise



You Pig.

Eggies



Purses in Plastic

Meat Hanging Out

Bowel Anyone?

French Bread

In the hospital

Waiting

Waiting for her child.

Pre-Op

Suture

Instruments

A fluffy friend

On the table

Roosters in the Morning

It doesn't matter if you are in Salvador, Brazil, New Delhi, India, Ubon Raatchatani, Thailand, or Cao Lanh, Vietnam; all large cities and desolate villages have roosters that crow from 4am- 7am. Waking up at 4am to the crow of a rooster brought back plenty of memories from my travels all over the world and made me think long and hard about the rooster crow. After sitting in bed and staring at the ceiling for a few hours this morning, I decided that the morning crow of the rooster is the one single thing that makes all developing countries the exact same. Anyone who has traveled abroad can correct me on this, but, I feel as though I am going to be hard pressed to find someone that is going to tell me the contrary. It's time to use the skills I developed as a father who is also a medical student, and sleep through the rooster crow so that I am fresh tomorrow morning unlike the way I felt this morning when I stumbled down to breakfast.


The first day in the operating room was exciting, and hot! The morning consisted of two cleft lip repairs, one right incomplete cleft lip and one left complete cleft lip. The afternoon consisted of a complete cleft palate and an incomplete cleft palate. All four of the surgeries were technically challenging and the resident and attending I were working with did a phenomenal job with all of the repairs. One of the most exciting parts of the day was the teamwork between the Vietnamese staff and the American team. The one thing that I believe is most important when doing international surgical missions is developing a relationship and collaborating with the local population in which you are working with. It is important not to just "fly in and fly out," but to foster an ongoing relationship and also learn from and also teach those whom you are working with...

On a food consumption note; I am on day #1 of CIPRO. If you don't know, then you best GOOGLE it or ask somebody. Today's menu included French bread, French fries, Vietnamese coffee (basically manually percolating espresso dripping onto condensed milk), random rice paper-like crepe stuffed with rice noodles, vegetables, and shrimp, spring rolls, a soup with octopus, squid, fish pate nuggets, and other things, Beer (333, Tiger, and Heineken), and more bok choy. It was all tasty although i questioned, to say vaguely, some of the food...

Tonight after dinner I went with one of the residents to check out a "night market;" it was at night and was indeed a market. Because the place was so deserted, we decided to check it out in the morning. We will also be checking out a Karaoke bar tomorrow evening....


I would like to discuss and write about so many more issues; infection control, hospital care, infrastructure, etc, but I am just too tired. Maybe in a few days.....

On the road.

Before...

After...

Food.

In the Operating Room

Bathroom.

Passing Lanes

Variety Stew.

Pos-Operative Overnight Ward