Mango Nicky Rice

​ https://gofund.me/e099b23a Most of my Global Health Fellowship year is spent here on the Thailand-Burma border helping a 30-year old refugee clinic to develop emergency medicine and acute care focused care. The patients are escapees from one of the world's longest civil wars and have become stateless refugees. The mission of the clinic I am helping is to provide Healthcare as a Human Right. I have seen that many of the displaced people are very poor and often cannot afford even simple life-saving diagnostics and treatments such as chest X-rays, antibiotics, immunosuppressants for diseases that are ravaging their vital organs or transfer to the bigger hospital for severe hypoxia or sepsis. Others need simple things like walkers, crutches, physiotherapy equipment or nutrition (generally that consists most basically of formula for malnourished babies and rice and oil for adults). Healthcare providers in Burma have been targeted and forced out of the country, so many Burmese come acr...

Curriculum meeting nwe ni: no emergency care here (GIB, AUB, DKA) no IV potassium here. No IV insulin.  Concern should we bother teaching the treatment if we don’t have the resources? I think yes. When in doubt, train up and look to the future. Don’t train down because as we grow, medics will need to know the right way to treat patients. We don’t have to go into excruciating detail. But we can mention the ideal treatment and why it’s important 

About 6 weeks in my city here and I’ve learned: We can stop dosing so much Bisacodyl and Senna. Just feed every one curry. You will stay regular.  Nose hygiene is a daily thing. After cycling or walking around the city or to work, your nares are coated with a fine crust of booger cake. You must be a nose-picker in order to thrive. The Thai word for pumpkin sounds like a cuss word. I learned this from a Thai couple who were asking what was in a Burmese soup. The man kept bursting into giggles while trying to explain. “It’s called ‘Fuk’ in Thai hee hee hee, hee hee hee.” The woman rolled her eyes at him   Fuk If you can’t read Thai, it’s easy to find that you’ve bought a sack of fertilizer instead of a sack of rice.  Girls should have delicate nicknames - like “Bird” or “Fish” or “Flower.” I went out with a Thai friend and we decided I would pick an animal to nickname myself. Her nickname in Thai is Nok , which means bird. I chose “Elephant.” My friend’s eyes widened and sh...