I have just returned to the
United States after working at the Baptist Medical Center in
Nalerigu for five weeks. After praying and planning for an
opportunity like this since I started my medical education, I
was blessed to have experienced medicine in Northern Ghana as a
senior medical student.
Many cases come to mind of
patients who arrived at the BMC hurting, bleeding, or near
death, and were able to leave the hospital in a promising
condition. There was a young man brought to clinic by a relative
because he could not stand on his own. He had been having
abdominal pain and was unable to farm for the last two weeks.
After I examined him, my only thought was that I hoped we could
get the proper care to him in time before he died on the table.
He and his relative must have had to travel days to get to the
BMC for them to have waited that long to seek care. He was
admitted and taken to the theatre for a laparotomy that night.
The surgeon told me that he had a bowel perforation and an
abdomen full of pus that had likely been present for more than a
week. When I saw him walking in the hallway several days after
his operation for the typhoid perforation, it was a full-circle
observation of how influential the BMC is to the people who
travel there for medical care.
One thing I learned about the
culture in West Africa is the importance that bearing children
has to the women and their husbands. I spent an afternoon in
clinic with an OB/Gyn resident, and the majority of women seen
that day were there because they had not conceived. Knowing that
their husbands may leave them if they cannot produce a child, it
becomes clear just how much the clinic visit means to them, as
well as how comforting it must be for a mother to leave the
pediatric ward with a healthy baby in her arms after the child
presented with cerebral malaria and severe anemia.
Looking back on the past few
weeks, I am overwhelmed with thoughts about the people who came
to receive treatment at the BMC. Every Monday, Wednesday, and
Friday, I can’t help but say a prayer for those who are serving
there, as those are the clinic days when hundreds of patients
are seen by staff. And as I think about all of the mothers who
came with children actively seizing and hemolyzing from malaria,
I wonder what their outcomes would be if it were not for the
care available at the BMC. It was an honor to serve at the BMC
and play a role in providing care to the people of West Africa.
I am grateful to the Faile Foundation for supporting my
experience at the BMC. It is one that will influence me
throughout my life and career.
