Day 4 at the Clinic

Day 4 at the clinic and I was lucky to be with Dr. Bon again. There were three patients today that stood out in my mind (Yes, I’m also writing this a week after). We started off the day with a female pelvic exam with the patient having chlamydia. The second patient was my first HIV positive patient. Because we are not an HIV clinic, we refer HIV patients to either the government hospital Sekou’Toure or Bugundo. Antiretrovirals are given free of cost, but rumor has it that they will not give it to you unless your CD4 T cell count is below 200, which is ridiculous. Basically, you can’t get them until you have AIDS. Is this true? I’m not sure.

The third patient was a shy male in his late teens. Here we are going through chock full of patients of both sex and various ages, and this boy comes in embarrassed. He walks in and sits down with his head down and whispering to Dr. Bon. Today, Pete and I are both assisting Dr. Bon. The boy was talking to Dr. Bon in Swahili, but I already knew that this boy was embarrassed to talk to me (the only girl in the room) about his penile discharge. Dr. Bon and him are still talking when Mama JJ comes in and also tells the boy in Swahili that it is okay and that I’m also a doctor. The boy is still embarrassed. This is the only patient that I had to step out of the room for. But hey, it may be Tanzania, but people are people. I respect that. Haha.