Tuesday: After morning meeting and ward rounds, I spent an hour with a general surgeon consulting on new cases. We admitted a 6 year old with inguinal hernia. At first, the parents aren't sure they would be able to afford the operation. It costs about 200$ for the surgery. Fortunately, there is a governmental program that will with the cost. Unfortunately, if the parents decide to go with the governmental program, they might have to stay in the hospital for several days until there is a free spot in the surgical schedule. And each day at the hospital costs about 10$. If they were private pay, they were guarenteed to be on schedule that same day.
After the general surgery consults, I went with an orthopedic surgeon. We saw about 30 patients in about 4 hours. We saw new patients and follow up patients with Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip. I was not expected to see so many cases and with such varied range of age, from 6 months to 5 years old. But in Cambodia, newborns and infants are not routinely screened for hip dysplasia. I also saw a few cases of arthrogryposis, something that I don't remember seeing in the states. We also had several cars of scoliosis and one case of osteogenic imperfecta.
Wednesday: after the morning meeting, I skipped ward rounds and went to the operating theatre. My first case was a 6 month old girl with cleft lip and palate. Today, we were only correcting the lip and is one of my top ten procedure that I've taken part in. To me, it's like a
puzzle where pasta don't seem to fit our make sense, but once the procedure is finished, the result is amazing. This is the second time I've worked with Dr. Vanna and I've been following my first cleft patient from Monday. If I had not seen this patient before surgery, I would not have imagined that he had cleft lip.
After the cleft surgery, I observed an osteotomy procedure of bilateral femurs in a year old boy with arthrogryposis. The procedure was performed to release the contractures at the knees so the legs can straighten and the patient can have some mobility. The surgery was performed by a visiting surgeon from the states.
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