Thursday

[This is the last post in the blog... to start at the beginning, use the navigation bar on the right to select the earliest post]

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Thursday was our final day of clinic, and this time clinic was to be held right at our camp, in Cabaret. In the morning before clinic we walked into town to explore the local market. 

 

It was a bustle of activity and stretched for many blocks. I found it interesting that there were hundreds of vendors selling nothing but plantains, melons and mangoes. The variety was limited, but the produce looked lovely.

 

Aside from the plantain, mangoes and melons, there were many vendors selling street food, knick-knacks and junk. A used "Montreal" Swiss-Army knife for sale reminded us all to keep an eye on our belongings. There were tiny little stalls selling everything from used cell phone chargers to door hinges to belts. 

Back from the market, we set up clinic again for the last time. Today, we were seeing patients from the local village and all the boys from the orphanage. Allison, one of the medical doctors on our trip, kindly allowed me to shadow her for the morning. I was delighted to be offered the opportunity to find a fetal heart rate using her portable fetal heart rate monitor (easier said than done), and look in people's ears, listen to their lungs, and palpate lumps. These are opportunities that are hard to come by in Canada, since due to strict privacy regulations non medical students can't shadow medical doctors.As always, scabies was one of the most common diagnoses.