Universitas Day 2 & the Last Day of my Internship!


Today, I began my day in a pediatric ward following around Helane, one of the dieticians at the hospital. We saw a very young patient, about one years old, who was extremely malnourished because he was allergic to so many different foods (mealie meal porridge, wheat, etc.)! They have been trying various different foods to test them, and they had just found out that he could not eat potatoes. Helane told me that the food that he mostly eats is rice porridge, milk, and chicken, because those are the two foods that they have found he is not allergic to. It is worrisome because when he goes home to Lesotho, his family is very poor and will probably not be able to afford the special diet and foods that he needs to stay healthy. The same child also has severe eczema. I also saw another child, who was also very young, that had malaria. The doctors think that the child has malaria because his father is a truck driver and it is possible that on one of his routes a mosquito carrying the disease flew into his truck and came home with him. It was very sad! The child appeared to be very ill. He was also receiving TPN feeding. Another girl I visited, who was about seven, had a severe lung problems, so much so that she is unable to even walk a couple yards away to the bathroom. She was very excited because she had just received a computer and printer from the Reach for a Dream Foundation, which is very much like our Make a Wish Foundation! It was very nice to see such a big smile on her face!
I then followed around another dietician, Monica, for the remainder of the day. I visited the milk kitchen with her, but the workers there had not yet started their day. I tried to go back after my rounds with Monica ended to see how they make the liquids but they still had not yet received the orders, so I was unable to experience this part of the hospital.
We then went into the regular kitchen, and Monica talked to me about "cook freeze." This is how the hospital can feed so many patients; the food is cooked elsewhere, frozen, and brought to the hospital. It would definitely be very hard for the workers to make enough food the feed all the patients without this system! I got to see some of the workers unloading all of the frozen foods into the kitchen.
At the end of my day, we attended a multidisciplinary meeting with various other doctors, nurses, and physiotherapists. We went around the ICU and discussed patients symptoms, diagnoses, and possible treatments for them.
And so concludes my internship! I cannot even begin to explain how life changing my experiences here were for me. I am very sad to go, but I keep reminding myself that I should also be happy that I had this  amazing opportunity and that I was able to learn so much from it! I know that this internship will have a great impact on my future career in dietetics, and my life in general. I fell in love with this country; the people here, the scenery here, the activities here, all came together to form one of the best experiences of my life! I would love to come back to South Africa again, and I will definitely help to promote this study abroad program to other dietetic students when I return home! Thank you so much for everything, Dr. Jones! When I was accepted into this program I was excited, but I had no idea just how incredible it was all going to be!