The emergency department, and lots of eating!

I’ve just returned from an evening in the Emergency Department. One of the Vietnamese medical students (Thuong) invited me to join them on their shift. They’re going to be there all night, but I decided against that!

It was quite a night… I was only there for a few hours, but I saw so many interesting cases. Literally every two minutes another motorbike trauma case gets wheeled into the ED. Tonight I saw a subdural haemorrage, extradural haemorrhage, three patients with legs shattered to pieces, acute appendicitis, a patient with a rigid abdomen (rock solid), a patient with frank haematuria (blood in urine), a patient with malaena (blood in stools from upper GI bleed), an elderly patient involved in a motorbike accident who suffered major head trauma and passed away (well actually she was sent home intubated with her family squeezing her bag and mask valve to enable her to pass away at home… here in Vietnam, I think people prefer it if their relatives can die at home).

Here is an X-ray of one of the crazy fractures (this guy’s leg was completely open with bone sticking out):

 

It was quite overwhelming how much was going on. There were lots of Vietnamese students there (many more than we have on-call in the UK). There weren’t many nurses, which meant that family members tended to do most of the nursing (fetching bowls for vomit, changing soiled sheets etc). I think I’ll describe it as organised chaos… it was hard to tell who was running things, so at times it was pure chaos, but I’m sure there was some sort of organisation behind it all. We didn’t really get to follow any patients through, because as soon as we saw one patient, the next ten would arrive! It was pretty full-on. Here is a photo of Tamara and me:

Anyway, apart from hospital stuff, I’ve also been doing lots of eating… I’ve introduced Tamara and Paula to Quan An Ngon (that’s the one I eat at with Annett, and also went to lots with the Swedish girls), and they’ve fallen in love with it! We went there for dinner last night, and again for lunch today! Here we all are (Paula, Tamara, Me, Thomas and Lawrence):

 

Two nights ago we all went out for dinner to a restaurant overlooking Hoan Kiem Lake. It was a bit touristy (there were musicians playing traditional Vietnamese music by the side of the table), but it had a really nice view… They also came around and gave us roses! Here’s a photo of us there:

 The only other thing I’ve been doing is shopping… I’m trying to get some gifts and sounvenirs sorted because my time in Hanoi is coming to an end. I can’t give away too much info about gifts… but after 2 months here in Hanoi, I think I’m quite clued up about where to get good presents. So don’t worry, you have nice gifts on the way! 

Tomorrow, I’m giving a powerpoint presentation at English Club about motorcycle helmets and cervical spine injuries… and then at 8pm, Louise Sanderson arrives from Singapore… she’s staying for the weekend, and I’m really looking forward to showing her around!