Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH) is the national referral hospital in the capital city of Lilongwe serving the central region of Malawi. The pediatric ward admits more than 27,000 patients per year and manages all medical emergencies. Among the pediatric wards, three units provide emergency management and care for critically ill children. These wards include the triage, resuscitation, and HDU (high dependency unit) where I will assist local pediatricians to provide supervisory care for front line providers. There are not enough local pediatricians to staff these wards. In addition to direct clinical care, my role also includes teaching for medical students and interns on pediatric and pediatric emergency care as well as assisting to develop local protocols for pediatric emergency care.
I will serve the pediatric patients of Kamuzu Central Hospital, particularly those who have acute and critical care needs. Local consultants with pediatric training are minimal. I hope to provide direct clinical care for this specialized population while also helping to train and educate local providers. I will assist with protocol development for common pediatric emergencies.
I hope to assist KCH department of pediatrics in developing local protocols as they relate to general pediatric emergency management conditions. These include trauma patients, DKA management, asthma management, bronchiolitis. This list is to be expanded based on local needs. Secondly I hope to assist KCH department of pediatrics with structured teaching as it relates to emergency management conditions. These include directed lectures during morning handover to the entire pediatric department and afternoon lectures for interns and students. I also hope to maintain interpersonal relationships for a site I have visited in the past and plan to continue to visit in the future. Through this relationship I hope to strengthen an inter-institutional partnership to allow the benefits to continue through additional individuals other than myself.
I worked clinically for 6 weeks providing direct clinical care to pediatric patients that presented to the acute care and high dependency units of Kamuzu central hospital. Some examples include helping a 7 week old in respiratory distress get a trach, managing heart failure for rheumatic heart disease patients, managing multiple cases of complicated varicella infection, managing sickle cell patients and their complications, managing malaria, and numerous cases of nephrotic syndome. I worked directly with clinical and medical officers as well as medical students and tried to engage in ward teaching with them every day.
