Volunteering with a Little Fun and Holiday Mixed In

​BY LUKE HUSBY, DOOn a cool Monday afternoon, the plane to Dulles, then Frankfurt, and ultimately Bangalore took off. I landed two calendar days later in a place about 40°F warmer, with a weather forecast of "smoke."I was greeted by a driver who only spoke Tamil. He took me to my hotel room less than a mile from the hospital where I was volunteering through congested traffic that held no regard for traffic lines or signs. The ED in Bangalore is essentially a 10-bed department, divided into a high-acuity and low-acuity sections.The high-acuity section of the ED.An entire herd of students flocked to see one patient in particular. The patient presented with shortness of breath, and was diagnosed with spontaneous pneumothorax. His chest x-ray prior to the placement of his "ICD," or chest thoracostomy tube, is shown below.With an ED volume of only 23 to 25 patients per day, each patient is greeted by multiple students prepared to examine him.​After three full days of lectures and bedside teaching, we went out for an evening of sari shopping and to try out the multitude of sweets and street vendors. After Bangalore, I landed in Madurai, "the temple city," home of one of the oldest and most impressive temples in the world. The emergency department there was more of the same: The four wings of the hospital were buzzing at all hours.​The Meenakshi Amman Temple in Madurai was mentioned as far back as the 7th century and was built in honor of the...
Source: Going Global - Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs