Elayne’s blog about Chatty Clinic
Chatty Clinic, another government sponsored clinic that deals with primary care, mother infant, vaccinations, etc (no birthing, no suturing, emergencies are referred ASAP). This clinic sees 200+ patients/day on a busy day. Today was a little slower because it was cold and raining this a.m.
Did get to see a patient with low back pain. It was a little tricky assessing for “numbness & tingling”, ROM of the spine, and trying to understand how long that soft movable lump had been in the middle of his back (T10-11region). Used lots of “can you do this” (getting the patient to cross his left foot to his right thigh was definitely something, felt like I was playing charades. The NMMU student was great translating my instructions. Did have a problem for all students, American & NMMU alike, with the inguinal pain patient that did not speak English, Afrikaans, or Xhosa. Even the Mentor had to get an interpreter. Turns out the patient needed an RPR test and treatment for STI. No interpreter phones here so I hope all patient education made it through the barrier. You know it must be frustrating for nurses here at times, especially when the patients are given the best information (like the use of condoms are important) and the patient has the right to refuse. Makes me want to say, “It will fall off” or “You will go blind if you don’t….” Don’t think I would be very patient with some of these people. Like the lady that came to clinic last week with 3.5+ tonsils, fever, pus on the tonsils, & could not talk or swallow food for a week. I just want to say “how could you stand this for so long? After all, the clinics are free. But I guess this is why I came here, to see how illness is perceived and handled.
I liked this Clinic the best so far (still have another one to go to). The students and mentor were most helpful and easy to talk with, and they were good at making sure my questions were answered. Not all experiences have been this comfortable –Elayne