Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite!

On Monday, we moved from the amazing IU House to the MUSOM Student Hostel. I was actually excited about getting to know some of the medical students on my team better and living there would give me the opportunity to go into the hospital during the evening to help admit patients and to check up on some of the ones that I follow.

That night actually was an interesting experience. Getting acclimated to a room that is about 5 feet by 7 feet that two people have to live in is something very different from what we experience in the US. Also, the communal bathrooms.... they are something else I guess. The one on the second floor is the one I went to first and I became very worried about the rest of my time there, but I soon found out from some of the other students that the the bathroom on the fourth floor is much better. And trust me, after seeing the standing brown water and smelling the 2nd floor bathroom three doors away, I don't mind the 3 flights of stairs multiple times a day. I truly am excited about living there though. I've already gotten to know some of the medical students and I hung out with one of the 4th year students (= MS2) for an hour in her room.

Well, right before falling asleep, Sashana (2nd year Slemenda Scholar and my roommate) told me that she saw two little bugs in her bed that are "longer than they are wide." At this point, I had been studying on my bed for the past hour so I decided that it was late and I was going to sleep in that bed regardless. Needless to say, I woke up with bites on my legs from presumed bed bugs. So they moved us back to IU House while they fumigate our room with something that is illegal in the US. Luckily, I didn't unpack anything so I don't have to boil/throw away all my clothes.

I am definitely having culture shock on the wards. More so than outside of the hospital. Things just work very different here and I'm still getting used to some (no pretty much all) of the intricacies of maneuvering the medical system at Moi. I have also seen some interesting cases that I never thought I would see outside of my pathology book. This includes multiple cases of miliary TB, rheumatic heart disease, TB meningitis, aortic insufficiency with infective endocarditis, and possible neuroleptic malignant syndrome (and so much more that I can't even think of right now). I will try to post some interesting cases/physical findings as I come across them but i will have to wait until I find a way to black out eyes in videos/pictures.

Dr. Mackenzie Lupov using a mercury blood pressure cuff :) (Her blog that is much more informative than mine: http://mackenzielupov.blogspot.com/)