Organizing the ER

Another 7 am to 845 pm day in the Er. Today I woke up on a mission, and got to work organizing the er. We have 4 areas, and I put a doctor and a nurse in each area. Luckily we had enough people mid day to do this from 9 to five. I then worked with a retired ob doc on planning out the pharmacy. Before it was endlessly frustrating to find anything, but now we have a plan of attack, and a map at the doorway. I also ran around doing things which others could not like interact with the lab, ob ward, ect, things I have learned in the past week. An er doc and I made assessments on post op patients, one with pneumonia, another not as anemic as the lab thinks (clinical opinion is best). Then a team of doctors and nurses, 6 total, left at 4pm, and all of a sudden several very sick patients showed up. A pneumonia with double pneumothorax took up a considerable amount of time, even finding all the supplies! No time to organize when people are crashing! Alfonso has been doing the night shifts in the er, and feels a little sick.

Many of the diseases I am seeing are the result of the Haitians living in close proximity in the streets, psychological stress, infectious diseases, broken bones or musculoskeletal pain from the event, and long term issues that have never been addressed.

Pray for us!

The morning

Full attention to a crashing patient. One general surgeon, one icu doctor, one anesthisiologist...

"Directly observed antimalarial therapy"