Last Day at Helping Hands

Originally uploaded by ruth.e.campbell

The last day at Helping Hands was like any other day. Megan, Joyce and I arrived at the hospital around 11, and headed straight towards Dr. Gupta's office. Per usual, Gupta was no where to be found, so we killed time by going to the ER.

When we arrived in the ER, there was a younger doctor on duty--one we had never seen before. Like all the other young doctors, he ignored us until we forced him to talk to us by asking annoying questions about the patients. There were only a few patients in the ER at the time, and one of them was a sickly, older woman who had traveled from the villages to get help. After a bit of prodding, the doctor brought us to the woman, and showed us how to do a full physical.

The woman was anemic, and was very malnourished. He showed us how to examine her entire body, starting with the eyes and fingertips, all the way to her breasts, abdomen, and toes. Her fingers were clubbed and stained (she was a chronic smoker), and her skin was coated in a thick layer of dirt. He stripped her, and showed us her chest (her breasts were barely there) and had us count all of her ribs. We spent a full hour with the woman, just doing one physical, but we learned more in that hour, than we had in the week we had spent being ignored by the other doctors.

Afterwards, we found doctor Gupta and sat on his examination table, while he saw patient after patient in his tiny room. Nate eventually joined us, and after lunch, we learned that there was a surgery on a hydrocele. A hydrocele is when a sack, surrounding the testicle, fills with fluid, causing the scrotum to swell. The surgery involves cutting open the scrotum and the sack, draining the fluid, reversing the sack (so that it won't fill again), putting it back in the scrotum, and sewing it back up.

Nate, Joyce and I went to it, while Megan went home to sleep. Once we scrubbed in, the nurses offered us tea and cookies, and we got to talking with the head surgeon and the anesthesiologist. They told us about the surgeries they do, the complications, and how difficult it is to be a doctor. They even offered to let Joyce and Nate assist in surgery after they are there for a few months. We finished our tea, went into the OT, and watched on as the surgeon cut open the sack and fluid sprayed out onto his face and clothes. But a successful surgery, nonetheless.

As I was leaving, the surgeon, who had never really talked to me before, took my hands, bowed to me and told me that the hospital would miss me greatly. I'd be lying if I said I didn't tear up a bit.