warning...moderate gross out factor.

WARNING..GRAPHIC BLOG ENTRY…PLEASE SKIP THIS ONE IF GROSS MEDICAL PHOTOS MAKE YOU QUEASY.

Well, I figured it was high time I provide you guys with a more “medical” blog entry. Friday, The Sheets family arrived at our hospital. Dr. Sheets and his family have been coming to Karanda for the past 12 years or so. Dr. Miller, an anesthesiologist friend of the Sheets also arrived with his family. A total of fourteen people came with the Sheets crew. I met Dr. Sheets in passing a year ago, but it has been a true pleasure getting to know him and his family better over this past weekend. They are remarkable people and it seems that everybody around here has been touched by their friendship and generosity.
Friday was a busy day in the operating theater (AKA “operating room”). As usual, we had a vast variety of pathology. I’ve been trying lighten the workload from Dr. Roland Stephens, our surgeon. He’s in his early 80′s and has provided heroic levels of service and care to the Shona people in our region (and people throughout this region of Africa, really). Usually, I’m able to take care of the ultrasound scans and minor surgery that happens. But, since this years international fellows wrapped up their time here, I’ve been happy to jump into more substantial procedures. I feel quite comfortable with c sections, tubal ligations, suprapubic prostatectomies, ventriculoperitoneal shunt placements, urethral dilitations, hydrocelectomies, orchidectomies, skin grafting, and most closed orthopedic procedures, to name a few. I’m growing in my comfort levels with other procedures as well.
Below you can see Dr. Sheets and I grafting the side of a guy’s face that was in a car wreck several months ago. The white spot you see in the first picture is skull. This was visible through a defect in the tissue about the size of my thumb nail. In order to cover the bony area, we created rotation flap, which you can see repaired with blue sutures on the last photo. We probably could have used a smaller mesh setting on the grafted skin, but the final product will still look good.