Today was the second day spent at Ramathibodi hospital. We started the day visiting the pediatric ward. This involved several sections including chemo, ICU, NICU, PICU, general, etc. We were able to watch and listen to the team do rounds at 10am. Although we could not understand when they were talking in Thai, they did a great job keeping us updated. To be honest, this morning was a little rough for me, seeing the sick children ranging from 1 month old to adolescence. Many of them were seriously ill. One of the first things we were told during rounds was that one of the children might need to be put on ECMO if respirations did not improve. After nitrous oxide and moving the child to lay on the front there was not a need for ECMO for the time being. We also learned of an infant having a heart defect where the heart was flipped so that the left ventricle pumped to the lungs and the right ventricle pumped to the body. Apparently, in the U.S. this is an abnormality that is often found earlier in life and easily corrected with surgery. But in this case, and often in Thailand, it was discovered too late for immediate corrective surgery. A band needed to be placed on the artery leaving the left ventricle before the corrective surgery so that it will eventually be strong enough to pump blood out to the entire body. This often takes about a month.
After lunch we visited a few other wards and then sat down and discussed more information with the clinical pharmacists before leaving for the day. Today was definitely a life changing experience.
This is a picture of us going over a case in the peds ward.
Thanks for checking in!
-Lindsey
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