First day at Mulago

I’d heard a lot of horror stories about the Infectious Diseases ward at Mulago Hospital. One of my friends, Seabass, had rotated through there, and had what seemed like a harrowing experience. So I couldn’t quite understand why he would basically coerce me into doing the same rotation when I told him that I was coming to Mulago Hospital for a clinical experience.

So it was with some trepidation that I started my first day at work. I walked into Ward 4A – Infectious Diseases, and was assigned to the female ward. I joined the team on their rounds. The “team” as it turned out, consisted of only the Senior House Officer (SHO) – Dr. Wilson, and a rising second year medical student from UW – Joel Wackerbrath. The consultants (equivalent of our attendings) come as and when they feel like it, and our consultant was not present today. The interns were on strike, as they had not been paid for the past 2 months – they were not coming back until they got their pay check. So it was just us three for the day.

I soon found out why I had been assigned to the female ward and not the male ward. As it turned out, the SHO assigned to the male ward was away on “extra-curricular activities” – I still don’t know what that means. And since the interns were on strike, there was absolutely nobody taking care of the patients on the ID male ward. I couldn’t believe that. However, my SHO was fantastic. He was a great teacher, endlessly patient, never too rushed to explain his clinical decisions to us. He also always made time to respond to any patient or patient’s family member who stopped him for questions. And he also went to round on all the more critical patients on the male ID ward. And here’s the kicker – he’s actually supposed to be on vacation, but he came back to help out; otherwise there would have been nobody to take care of any of the patients on the ID ward. So I walked away from my first day feeling more inspired than depressed, all thanks to Dr. Wilson.