RFM People

I have meet some incredible people since I have been here in Swaziland. The gentle in the top pic with me is Sandile Malza, RGN/M, He is the infection control coordinator for the entire hospital. He is a registered general nurse (RN) and midwife. He is new to his job in infectin control so I have been working with him to get organized and prioritize his work. We take so many things for granted such as being able to work a computer but Sandile did not have much experience with computers so we spent on afternoon just going over the various Micro-soft WORD applications on the computer in his office that he shares with the hospital's inservice coordinator. He was very happy when I showed him hom to insert a page header and page numbers into a WORD document. Then we created a schedule for him on line that he can update daily and I showed him how to create a few simple tables as he is setting up a hospital nosocomial reporting system. Such a small things that I know I take for granted made him smile.

The gentlemen in the second pic with me is Dr. C.I. Vitalis. He is one of the doctors who is posted to the ART clinic (Anti-retroviral Treatment) here at RFM hospital. It is basically the outpatient HIV/AIDS clinic. He also admits and rounds on his patients who are mostly in the male and female medical wards. I spent two day working with Dr. vitalis and the wonderful nurses in the ART clinic here. Again this clinic is full each day and the patients come early and wait to be seen. Dr. Vitalis will on average see 50+ patients aday in the clinic. While the patients sit in the waiting room they have "Expert Patients" teach them about HIV/AIDS, taking their medications and why that is important, and why they need to use condoms when having sex. These expert patients are just that current patients who are also living with HIV/AIDS on treatment for the most part doing well. They serve as role models for the new patiets and advocates as well. They are also natives (Swazi) and will serve as interpretors as well for the patients who do not speak english for the doctors and nurses who do not speak SisWati (The Swazi native language). They really are integral to how this clinic functions and are just wonderful with the patients.

Dr. Vitalis like most of the physicians here is foreign. He is Nigerian and is a wonderful doctor. His clinical skills are sharp and he picks up on things just by looking and taking very detailed histories very quickly. He allowed me to observe him while he saw his patients and expalined a great deal to me. I must admit I learned a great deal from him. Even though I have been working in the HIV/AIDS clinical arena for some time now I have ever seen certain opportunisitc infections or drug reactions that HIV/AIDS get. In the course of two days I saw them all in this clinic, steven johnson syndrome, advanced kaposi's sarcoma, lipodystrophy of all forms, tinea, CMV retinitis, PCP pneumonia, molluscum, and many more. It was an eye opening experience but a very valuable clinical lesson for me. I can to teach and mentor but I have also learned a great deal which I hoped would happen when I came here.

To the wonderful people at the RFM hospital and the Nazarene College of Nursing thank you for allowing me to be a part of your world and for doing what you all do on a daily basis.