Mica’s blog #2
On Monday 8/6 I was at Greenacres hospital for the morning. This is a private hospital and as such is a lot nicer than the public hospitals. It actually reminded me a lot of the hospitals we have back home. It reminds me a lot of St. Mary’s. I was assigned to a sister (S.A. nurse) for the morning and observed her typical day at work. I was also able to remove sutures and change sterile dressings for a patient as well as give discharge instructions for a patient.
On Tuesday 8/7 I was visiting Motherwell Clinic. There were so many students there that I was only able to observe assessments but I was able to talk with the students and instructor about various aspects of primary care. Our mentor, Devona, was with me on this trip and I had the opportunity to ask her a lot of questions and learn more about the type of care people expect and the culture of health care in these primary clinics. On Wednesday 8/8 we did home visits and I was really happy with how these went. I was paired with 2 other students and we went into a home to see a man and his family. The man was diagnosed with bladder cancer and had been undergoing radiation therapy. He lived with his wife and 2 of his children and 1 of his grandchildren. He had 9 kids and 11 grandchildren. We were able to ask about the availability of resources (food, water, electricity, etc), employment/disability, and various other aspects of day to day life. I found it to be a very enriching experience and the family was really friendly. That night we had dinner with the nursing faculty from NMMU. We had a good time wining and dining with them. Beginning Thursday (8/9) until Sunday (8/12) was the holiday weekend. We did a lot of shopping (last minute gift buying…get excited!) and caught up on some sleep. On Wednesday night a few of us went to karioke and then on Thursday night we played trivia again. This time we won…woohoo!!! Friday some of us did whale watching which was awesome and Saturday we went to Addo National Elephant Park and Schotia Game Reserves. That was an awesome day with a braai at the end (a braai is a S. African bar-b-que type thing). Delicious!!!