Thursday with Dr. Borda

By Jessica Fowler, an OSU student who interned at CFHI La Paz, Bolivia during Winter term 2008

 

 

Oh how we love working Thursdays with Borda! Today was no exception. The city of El Alto was celebrating some sort of independence holiday so the clinic was absolutely dead. By that I mean there were only 30 people in the waiting room as opposed to 200. There was however a cesearan section planned, so Linh and I scrubbed up and headed to the surgery unit with Dr. Borda. Since he is in charge of getting the surgery underway with the local anesthesia, he had to have the room as he pleased, so he made a nurse bring in a radio so he could crank the toons. He never ceases to entertain us! He was dancing and singing the entire 40 mins it took him to sedate the women. It took so long since she was 42. I guess since it is harder to inject the drugs into her spinal cord. After about 15 needle attempts, we were finally ready for the incision. Everyone was especially careful since she was an older women and this was like a first pregnancy in the regard that she already had 7 kids, but not one since she was 30 years old! Luckily, she was also getting her tubes tied. After the baby was out, we followed the pediatrician to the “baby prep”area, where we helped ink the foot on the birth certificate, check the baby’s reflexs, clear its respiratory tract, and clean and dress it. Then, we got to hold and play with the baby girl for 40 mins until the mother was in the recovery room and could hold her baby.
Another thing that was really cool, but sad, was that another women had just delivered her baby, and it had congenital defects. So, for the first time I got to see a baby born with cleft lip and palate AND ectrodactylyl (“lobster claw” syndrome, where only the thumb is formed and the rest of the fingers are all together and unformed).