Teanu's news

today was a good day. as i mentioned i met more missionaries and the mission president. i am still impressed with the depth of knowledge from the members given how new they are to the gospel. the sunday school is full of new converts and investigators, mostly men. they are genuinely interested in the gospel. the missionaries were telling me they went from 30 baptisms/month to over 100/month, mostly in sierra leone. 

i will be able to meet all the missionaries in the next couple weeks by doing their physical examination, they also want me to see some members of the church. i explained that i am an emergency physician and that any abnormalities i find would have to be referred to specialists. elder kimball is one of the senior missionaries. he told me about the branch president who died in my ED last sunday evening. i wish i was there because i might have been able to do something. instead he waited all night and died the next morning before surgery. i explained to him the lack of resources here in liberia and that anyone critically ill should be immediately evacuated out of the country. it made him a little nervous i could tell. especially when i told him that if his heart stopped we don't even have a defibrillator. i can't think of very many countries in the world that would fit this description. even the poorest countries in south america are better equiped than we are here. 

an ED doc from wisconsin, he is the residency program director, showed up this week. he helped out a lot today and got the nurses and interns to get organized. they listen to him more than me. it will be good to have him here the next few weeks. he wants me to go to the trauma/surgical side this week instead of the medical side. that will be interesting. the trauma side is a disaster. lots of broken bones, head injuries, no sedation.


today there was a school riot, the teachers werent being paid so the students rioted. the police were called and started beating the students. they all showed up to the ED with lacerations, cuts, bruises. i started at one end, dr. tinesis started at the other and we started stitching their scalps until we met in the middle. i will attach a picture of them all lined up on the bench. pretty hilarious.


here is the riot squad we sutured.