6-14-2008 – Esmeraldas, Ecuador
*Don’t read this if gross stories make you uncomfortable.
The first patient yesterday came in with a head laceration he received laying bricks four days prior. But it wasn’t like any cut I’d seen before – it was enormous, like a puffball with an opening the size of my thumb. The edges looked more nibbled than cut. I looked closer. “Bring me the light”. Sure enough – maggots. Nice a plump, a family of about forty. The doctors called other doctors who whipped out their camera-phones to snap pictures. “Why didn’t you come in earlier?” I asked. “Oh, it didn’t bother me”.
People here generally do not understand basic health care – how or why to clean wounds. A number of cases like this got me thinking on the cultural aspect of health care. Hygiene is very much a part of American culture – as is medicine to some extent. We know, for instance, to take ibuprofen for headaches or to put hydrogen peroxide on cuts. Take this intuition out of the equation and we’d become very sick very fast.
*Don’t read this if gross stories make you uncomfortable.
The first patient yesterday came in with a head laceration he received laying bricks four days prior. But it wasn’t like any cut I’d seen before – it was enormous, like a puffball with an opening the size of my thumb. The edges looked more nibbled than cut. I looked closer. “Bring me the light”. Sure enough – maggots. Nice a plump, a family of about forty. The doctors called other doctors who whipped out their camera-phones to snap pictures. “Why didn’t you come in earlier?” I asked. “Oh, it didn’t bother me”.
People here generally do not understand basic health care – how or why to clean wounds. A number of cases like this got me thinking on the cultural aspect of health care. Hygiene is very much a part of American culture – as is medicine to some extent. We know, for instance, to take ibuprofen for headaches or to put hydrogen peroxide on cuts. Take this intuition out of the equation and we’d become very sick very fast.
No comments:
Post a Comment