Collette changing things up for her final weeks

With just one week left of internships, us Melomeds and Tafelsigs decided to switch things up a bit. Despite having the amazing experience to enter the PathCare lab on Monday, we were all thinking that we needed a change in scenery. Also, as with everything else lately, we are all getting a little afraid of missing out on things in this great city. On Tuesday and Wednesday of this penultimate week in Cape Town, one member of each hospital switched, and mine and Eric’s day was this Wednesday. Derek and Mariko switched on Tuesday, which was a little unlucky for Derek, as it was a pretty slow day at Melomed.

           

I was a little nervous to go to Tafelsig, seeing as how intense my co-educators can make it seem. We spent the morning fetching folders in the infamous reception room, which was a nice way to ease into the unfamiliar hectic atmosphere of the clinic. After tea, and getting a chance to talk with some of the awesome staff a little more personally, I followed Derek and Paige’s lead. They taught me how to go through the triaging process, which was less daunting than I had imagined, given that they used a machine to take the blood pressure and the pulse of the patient. Part of this also included giving HIV tests, which was a lot simpler than I thought it would be. The whole thing works through the same mechanism as a pregnancy test (the ELISA method) except for that instead of urine the test uses blood collected from a finger prick. After this, I was able to prepare patients for their EKGs. At various points Sister Castle would call me over so that she could teach me how to do “bloods” on a patient also. We finished off the day by looking at patients who were there to have their wound dressings changed.

           

The day flew by, and I imagine this was because I am not used to the hustle and bustle that greets Tafelsig clinic every day. While I love Melomed (and Sarah Fox) they do not have nearly the same level of action. Being at Tafelsig did make me miss the staff at Melomed though, and all of their crazy antics. It will definitely be bittersweet to see them for the last time in only a week.

           

On Thursday night we were able to attend a book launch instead of attending class on Wednesday night. First of all, I really enjoyed this because I do not have a ton of opportunities to go into the city during the week. It also was at a very cool bookstore known as the Book Lounge that I do not think anyone had been to before (besides Marita, of course). Listening to the author was awesome, as I had never been to an event like that before. It was also nice to have one last casual dinner together with everyone. Goodness knows that we will all be very emotional during our supervisor dinner this coming Thursday evening.