It's about halfway through my third day at the hospital, and I have to say, I'm really having a good time. Sure, I only understand about a quarter of what I hear, and another quarter gets interpreted for me, but I'm getting a lot out of it, if only because of the sheer volume that I see.
The room is set up with nine beds, with curtains between them -- three to your left as you walk into the room, and the other six across the far side. Plus there's a desk with a computer where herbal consultations and prescriptions can be written -- often for the first time a new patient comes in, plus some patients get medicine in addition to their acupuncture.
A prescription for acupuncture is for 10-14 sessions, usually every day or every other day. Patients come in and lie down on one of the beds, after giving a little slip to one of the interns there. The slip is pretty basic -- name and condition on one side, a grid with places for dates of treatment on the other, and the ubiquitous red stamp that makes it all official. The doctor in charge of this ward comes in and asks one or two questions -- many of these patients have had one or two courses of acupuncture already, so he knows them pretty well. It takes maybe 3 or 4 minutes to insert the 15-20 needles for the treatment, then it's off to the next patient. One lap around the room, and it's to the desk to see new patients, take a blood pressure reading, feel pulses, look at test results, or whatever.
30 minutes or so later, one of the interns will pull out the needles and send the patient on their way, a new patient jumps on the bed, and it's all over again. So I'm seeing (observing) about 40 patients a day this way. The ward I'm working in is about 60% facial paralysis (mostly post-stroke and other central neuropathies, with a few Bell palsy patients mixed in for fun). The rest are lumbar pain with nerve impingement, a couple of kids with mild cases of cerebral palsy, one man with dementia, and another with asthma.
It's all so fascinating. I'm gathering all kinds of information as quickly as I can... it's almost overwhelming. More after my afternoon shift.
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6 comments:
Hi Scooter!
Can I call you that? The trip so far sounds amazing. I am so enjoying your blog...keep up the good work. I probably will only travel to China through your eyes.
Love you,
Aunt Kathy
yeah Scooter it sounds great.
-craftsman
Secret's out. Thanks, Aunt Kathy.
I'd love to hear more about the Bell's palsy treatments.
Glad you are enjoying the experience and learning everything you can.....
Yeah, Steve, it's human sponge time. It's pretty cool, actually, once you take out the moments of sheer confusion as every word starts to sound the same. I imagine native Chinese speakers occasionally get the same experience of it all sounding like "Bar, bar, bar...."
Or is that native Greek speakers?
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