Teaching Day

Teaching session on labor dystocia

Waiting at Kibagabaga

Finally today we had a teaching session with the staff of Maternite at Kibagabaga. We came to the hospital and the maternity ward was quiet for once. We spent some time visiting with the nurses and staff. We handed out the rest of the printed surgical hats that Leann brought- the staff is so tickled by them. We'll need to make more for next time. We donate the american scrubs that we wear every day and the ratio of Rwandan scrubs to US scrubs is declining rapidly. We also noticed that the paper gowns that we had used the day before were hanging about for re-use. They use everything here again and again- they have nothing. In surgery Dr Monique is a miracle worker with the suture- she does more with each little stitch than I could dream of doing. Anyway, we spent quite abit of time visiting with the staff and getting to know them as best we can with the language barriers. Most speak 2 languages but the options include English, French or Kenyarwandan. I have been identified as one of the french speakers which is indredible since I was so awful at it when I studied it previously. Anyway, when we realized that the time was right for some teaching we got out the ALSO (advanced life support obstetrics) slides and did a teaching on management of labor dystocias. We made several suggestions that are very basic (drinking water or soda in labor rather than black tea to decrease dehydration) and discussed pearls of labor management and identification of problems. When we were finished Dr Monique told me how thankful she was and I said that we in turn were very happy to be here and working together--- then she said, "you cannot be happier than we are". I felt like this was so productive. We decided to head home and get some rest as certainly we will be very busy tomorrow.

I ended up visiting another market this afternoon (really!) with some of the other team members. I ended up finding the cloth that I had been searching for this whole time and did not know it existed. It shows a mother with a child on her back with her midwife. I was so thrilled and I asked the shop keeper, "quest q'ce?" (what is this) and she said immediatley "sage-femme" (midwife). I paid way too much (mzungu price) but didn't care, it was just incredible to stumble across.

Tonight I am working on finding some other files on the internet for Dr Monique. I decided to just order a cheese and tomato baguette and of course it is fabulous. So much of the food is so simple, but so natural and fresh.

Looking forward to tomorrow~