CALLED to Papua New Guinea

Credit goes to Gail Dooley for her creative contributions to Kudjip Hospital When she first came to me, Margret complained of irregular vaginal bleeding. She was old enough (mid-40's) that my mind jumped to cervical cancer or DUB (Dysfunctional Uterine Bleeding) due to a fibroid, but she seemed otherwise healthy. She told me she had been married for almost two years, but had never had children - unusual for PNG, where most women are married off and start bearing children in their teens. Here at Kudjip, one of the diagnostic tools I have come to dearly appreciate is the ultrasound machine. With much help from the other docs I have become very comfortable scanning our patients for a wide assortment of diagnoses which in the US might warrant a CT scan or MRI. At this point, I know what "normal" looks like and can identify the more common diseases (TB, liver/gall bladder disease, effusions, abscesses, etc), but much of the time I'm asking Bill or Mark (who's roo...

I Chronicles 29:11 Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,  for everything in heaven and earth is Yours.  Yours, O LORD, is the Kingdom;  You are exalted as head over all. Stalking forward, our necks craned to the canopy above, we scanned the lush green limbs for any trace of movement – a flicker of shadow or rustle of leaf. The cool jungle at 8,585 feet is layered in a reddish fuzzy moss, which sparkles with dew wherever rays of light glance through the thick foliage. Brilliant flowers are backlit by every shade of green – the trees woven together with vines and draped with mossy green beards, dripping from the last rainfall. Our movement was near-silent as we treaded upon spongy layers of decay, and each breath was partly held in anticipation of sighting our quarry – the remarkable Birds of Paradise. Our weekend adventure venue was  Kumul Lodge , a rustic mountaintop camp ~90 minutes W...

I have continued to face death on a regular basis, each instance unique in source and circumstance, but never less tragic. A recent example occurred well after midnight (I was on Call), when I was asked to come help a boy in the Pediatric ward who had stopped breathing. I arrived within a minute and found the staff pumping air into his lungs, but it was unclear if they had done any chest compressions. He didn’t have a pulse, and appeared lifeless.  While starting chest compressions, reading the boy’s chart (possible diagnoses of both pneumonia and gastroenteritis), and teaching the nurse how to effectively give breaths through the mask, I learned that the boy (named Isaiah) had stopped breathing 15 minutes before the nurses had called me. My heart sank. The chance of getting him back was slim to none. I ordered STAT Epinephrine, but the dose had to wait a minute for the medication to be found, and another minute for me to decipher the miniscule writing on the snap-top vial to c...

Since my last post was about some exploring we did off-station…I thought I would write and share about some adventuring that we’ve done on the station. The station is about half a mile across, with the hospital at the center, 2 trails going down to the river, and one road headed out to the front gate which leads to the highway. For fun, and to get my out-of-breath-self back into shape, Teddy and I have been going for a run around/across the station a few times each week. Sometimes we run across the station, make a stop at the weight room, and then run back….and other times, we run along the canal for the hydro dam and loop back up to the station. There is also a tennis/basketball court near our house which we take advantage of sometimes…Teddy much more than me.   : ) Last weekend, we got to do something that we had REALLY been looking forward to….tubing on the canal! There are about 10 inner-tubes in the mailroom fully inflated at all times, ready to be taken out on the water. ...