Lecture at Justinien

I was happy to be invited to speak on a pediatric topic at the conference room of Justinien Hospital on Wednesday, Feb. 6.  The talk was organized by Patricia Sedlak, RN, professor at Lorain Community College in Ohio, and Yanick from the the North Haiti Nurses Association.  Continuing Education Credits for nurses with American licenses were arranged, too.  The pediatric residents and some other doctors from surgery and anesthesia also attended, as well as Pat's visiting nursing and surgical tech students.  The room was PACKED, at least 60 people, I would estimate.

The talk was entitled "Essential Physical Assessment in Pediatrics, or, Why a examination must be done for a sick child".  The power point presentation, with some pretty clear photos I was able to gather, is posted on the files section of the Network's Yahoo group, if you are interested.  The talk was very practical and clinical, emphasizing how the findings completely change your management, so if you haven't examined for them, you can easily be doing the wrong management for your patient.  I also was able to demonstrate ausculation, ear, and throat exams through the projector and demonstration.  I also brought a digital camera integrated otoscope which didn't work great but did show some of the picture of a normal ear to the audience.

I had some nursing students try to look in one of the visiting volunteers ears to demonstrate that technique.  I think it is especially important to Haitian nurses who often practice along in village dispensaire's.  One of the first students scratched the volunteers ear with the ear speculum; after that I could show the next students what blood in the ear canal looked like (but I abandoned having them using the otoscope solo--I told them to practice on ear other).  

A lively discussion followed the talk.  We have the help of young surgeon , who turned out to be the best medical English-Creole interpreter in the room.  I also had the great help of psychologist Dr. Joseph Saintus who interpreted the bulk of the presentation.

I haven't done something like this for a while, and it was always with a much more dry research bend, so it was different, and pretty fun, and I think gave the audience something to think about, and something to practice!