Friedman: On To the Next Adventure

The following was submitted by DeAnna Friedman, 3rd year pediatrics resident.

Got behind on my blogging because I was trying to cram as much as possible into my last few days in Chiang Mai!

Monday was great - we saw some patients in clinic again, and then made rounds. There was a patient who had SLE and got zoster, and then it progressed to SJS and then TEN. 

While there is not a separate burn unit here, they were doing some interesting things. For instance, while this was not my patient, my attending showed me how sterilized banana leaves are used for patients to lay on because it does not stick to exposed skin. It looked like it worked well. (Photo used with family's informed consent.)

We also got a consult in the afternoon about a child in the surgery ward who had schizencephaly and was admitted for VP shunt placement. Shortly after admission and before surgery, the nurses noticed some new skin lesions that ended up being varicella. This child was in an open ward, unfortunately, so nine other children were possibly exposed. Only two had a history of varicella infection, and none of the rest were vaccinated.

The vaccine is not a part of the free vaccine program through the government and costs about $30, which is prohibitively expensive for most families. The good part is that, since they were exposed in the hospital, those who can receive the vaccine will get it for free. Two of the patients were only three months old though, so hopefully they do not contract it.

Most of the original patient's lesions were healing, but I did get a picture of one of the feet with a few good lesions.

Today, my attending took us all out for lunch, which was very nice. Here's a picture of the people I worked with here in Chiang Mai. She told me that I should come back sometime - very tempting!!

Tomorrow I leave for Siam Reap, where Amy Schminke will be joining me, and we will be working for 4 weeks. So, on to the next adventure!