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I finished my last day of work, and it was bittersweet. According to my patient logs, I have helped many children here in Jamaica (135 to be exact), while enjoying the beauty of lush rainforest and gorgeous beaches.

The view from the bridge of Annotto Bay

On the way between Ochos Rios and Annotto Bay

Typical bar in Jamaica

On my last day, I saw a patient for the second time at Port Antonio Hospital.  She was a 12 year old girl who had come last week  concerned because she was always thirsty, and always urinating, even at night.  In fact, mom was concerned because this wonderful, active 12 year old had never had a dry night in her life.  The mother had brought up this issue in the past with previous doctors, but no one had quite figured it out.  I had them obtain some basic labwork and a urine sample.  She had normal kidney function, her urine was negative for protein or blood or sugar, and she could properly concentrate her urine (ruling out a hormonal problem that could cause this issue).  The last test that we did was to check her hemoglobin A1c, which reflects the amount of sugar in the blood present over the past three months.  Normal is less than 6.3%.  Hers was 8.1%, indicating that she had diabetes (likely type 1).  I explained what happens in diabetes, warning signs to look out for, and referred her to an endocrinology specialist at Bastamante Bay. 

What I will remember most is the gratitude on the mother’s face because she finally knew what was wrong with her daughter.  The relief on my patient’s face was even more gratifying.  When I first saw her last week, she was so embarrassed because she was twelve and was still wetting the bed at night.  She wouldn’t make eye contact, and she barely said a word.  After she knew that it wasn’t her fault, that a disease was why she couldn’t keep dry at night, and that this problem was fixable once her diabetes was under control, she started smiling.

I have learned so much over this past month here in Jamaica, and am so sad that I will be leaving tomorrow. I have learned to be very self reliant, and this experience has shown me that I am ready (even if I didn’t think I was) to take up the mantle of being a full time pediatrician starting in July.  I am comfortable with procedures, and managing sick and not so sick patients at the same time.  I realized how adaptable I can be, and I am able to utilize limited resources to coordinate care of a patient.  I am so much more comfortable now with the idea of striking out on my own. 

Of course, I had wonderful nursing and physician support to help me all along the way.  As I said before, the people here in Jamaica are amazing…especially the parents and patients themselves.  They are so respectful of doctors (everyone takes off heir shoes when laying down on the exam table), and very patient.  They will wait hours to see a doctor in the heat.

Waiting area at PMH in the morning

The waiting area at PMH in the afternoon

Here in Jamaica, they speak both Patois, which is a very lyrical language of shorthand English, slang, and French, and regular English.  During my time here, many parents would speak with thick accents in Patois.  Sometimes I would struggle with understanding them, other times they would struggle with understanding me.  However, they never became frustrated. One of the physicians at PAH (Port Antonio Hospital) even gave me a short half hour lecture on Patois, and some of the rules. Like, never say I, just mi.  Th is pronounced “da”, and er becomes “a” like in “It ova dere”.  Each region of Jamaica has their own dialect of Patois, which makes it even more fun. It was like a puzzle sometimes, as I would do my best to figure out what was said.


So, mi a go home. However, I will always carry this experience with me.   Heading outside to enjoy my last bit of sunshine before I go!

Waving goodbye!

Yesterday, I worked at Port Maria’s Accident and Emergency Department.  The morning was quiet, the calm before the storm.  I didn’t have a single patient in the morning.  In the course of three hours during the afternoon, I admitted two patients and had to transfer one patient directly to Bastamante Hospital (three hours away) for emergent surgery. 

My first patient to be admitted was a 5 wk old baby boy who came in with fever and cough (likely with a cold).  However, because of his age and his immune system is not strong (and thus he is at risk for a serious bacterial infection), we had to admit him for IV antibiotics and check his blood and urine for infection. I obtained the labwork without problem, but the urine was another story.  In
Jamaica, it is routine to obtain urine specimens from children via suprapubic aspiration as opposed
to catheterization.  While it is the gold standard to obtain urine specimens this way, it is not routinely done in America.  Instead, we do urine catheterizations.  It was fascinating to see how this was done, and it seems surprisingly simple.  All you need is betadine, sterile needle and gloves, and a syringe.  You insert the needle directly into the bladder and draw back on the syringe to get the urine. 


The second patient I admitted was a very active 7 month old boy who had wriggled off his bed while
his mom was trying to change his diaper, and fell three feet onto a hard tiled floor.  He cried immediately, and was otherwise acting normally.  His exam was completely normal for his age except for a large bruise over his left forehead.  I admitted him for observation overnight.

The last patient was a 7 month old girl.  The moment the mom brought her in to the exam room, I knew something was wrong.  She was crying and whining nonstop, and nothing mom was doing was
helping.  Mom told me that she had started throwing up yesterday, and had become increasingly more
fussy overnight.  Yesterday, mom noticed that she had bright red blood in her diaper, and this
morning she noticed scarlet mucousy poop.  Her exam was notable for an increased heart rate, extreme tenderness over her entire belly, and guarding (trying to push my hands away).  Her diaper was filled with poop that looked like currant jelly.  I had never seen that before, but that sign is
pathognomonic for intussussception (the telescoping of one part of your bowel into another that can
cause death of the bowel if not repaired quickly). 



I spoke with the supervising ED doctor, who had never seen intussussception before. One of the
nurses had, and she confirmed that this was consistent with intussussception.  We called over
to Bastamante Bay Hospital, put in an IV and started IV fluids, and transferred her immediately
to the pediatric surgery service there (as there was none available at Port Maria).  Unfortunately,
Bastamante Bay is over 3 hrs from Port Maria Hospital, and is located in Kingston.


My day yesterday was very interesting, if not slightly terrifying.  I am so grateful for the help
that the ED doctor and the nurses here gave me as I was trying to take care of my patients without
knowing the system well or where things were. They patiently helped me out without making me feel
bad for not knowing.  I really appreciated that they did so, but I am not surprised.  Jamaican
people are amazingly warm, welcoming, and hospitable.  

Looking forward to what today will bring. 

with her, not only for her winning personality but because the exchange of ideas was excellent.  Since
we were from different parts of the country, we had our own ways of giving anticipatory guidance, or
managing certain illnesses.  We learned as much from each other as we have from the physicians in
Jamaica.  We also had a ton of fun together. 

This past Monday and Tuesday, I was at Port Maria Hospital, and I worked at their pediatric health care clinic.  Monday was a normal sick clinic, while Tuesday was a shot clinic.  Both days I saw 17 patients by 1:30 pm (approximately 4 patients/hr).  So, to recap, it was busy.  Some cases still stand out though. 

One patient, an 11 year old girl in middle school, came in complaining of pain behind her ankles
bilaterally and wrapping around the front lateral aspect of her foot.  She was an active soccer
player, who had been having this pain intermittently for the past two months (especially
when exercising a lot).  She also had some swelling around the lateral sides of her two feet, and
stated that her dad also had “bony bumps” like hers.  She had already had X rays of her feet, and
those were completely negative for any fracture, or tumor.  Her exam showed that she had tenderness
over the achilles tendon bilaterally and also over the point of insertion of the tendon into the bone
(lateral aspect of feet).  I diagnosed her with achilles tendonitis and accessory navicular bones. 
Treatment for this problem would include rest (minimize activity like soccer and walking) and
NSAIDs (ibuprofen).  However, when I told the mom this, she looked at me with dismay.  “She walks 2 miles to and from school everyday.  There’s no way she can do that.”  

I was reminded anew on how different Jamaica is from America.  Here in Jamaica, all children wear
uniforms to school, and those uniforms must be pressed & cleaned daily.  There is no such thing as
a bus system to take children to and from school, and I frequently see children walking on the side
of the road to school.  Some children even take taxis every day so that they can reach school. 
School here, while paid for by the government, is still a privilege. 

The other surprising patient that I had was an 18 mth old girl with chickenpox.  I had never seen
chickenpox before, and this rash was classic “dewdrops on a rose petal”.  In Jamaica, the goverment provides vaccines for free, but not all vaccines are covered.  All vaccines that are available in the U.S. are available in Jamaica, but families must go to private pediatricians to obtain shots that are not covered by the government. The vaccines that are not covered include vaccines against Hepatitis A, Varicella (chickenpox), Meningococcus (can cause pneumonia and meningitis), Pneumococcus (can cause pneumonia and meningitis), and Human papilloma virus (causes genital warts and anal/cervical cancer). 

Thursday, I met a wonderful 4 year old girl whose mom was worried because she was making a “chuffing” or throat clearing sound everyday, multiple times a day, for the past several weeks. Upon further history taking, I also found out that sometimes she would wring her mouth, or she would blink a lot. Each of these behaviors would last just a couple of seconds, and she would be completely aware throughout. She had done these behaviors for the past year. The little girl was otherwise completely normal. I diagnosed this girl with a tic disorder (? early Tourettes), and broke the news to mom that this disorder can unfortunately get worse (she can develop new tics), and that this might not be curable and medicine would not help. Mom was happy to have an answer, but unhappy that there wasn’t much more we could do. Frequently, children who suffer from tic disorders can be taught behavioral techniques to help minimize how frequently they have tics. I don’t know those techniques, and those that would (speech therapists) were not available. Here, speech therapists, along with psychiatrists and physical therapists are concentrated in bigger cities (like Kingston), with
a few scattered throughout the countryside. 

The more I learn about the Jamaican healthcare system, the more impressed I am at the doctors
here.  They truly rely on their clinical judgement, and are trained to be general practioners who can
take care of people from birth to death.  Many of them can also do surgeries like c-sections and
tubal ligations.  I like to think that during my time here, I have learned to be more decisive and
trust my clinical judgement from their example.