Tuesday, October 15th
8:00am - You already know how we started our morning...good old Amazon cafe for the win. Cynthia got her coffee and we were on our way to the first day in the Internal Medicine Ward. [Tip for the ward: ALWAYS bring your white coat]
8:30am - We started our morning with two 6th year pharmacy students (Mantha and Vee), who were our "translators" and buddies for these next two weeks in the ward. They showed us how to look up patients in the computer system, and we completed medication reconciliations the rest of the morning. We worked through a couple patients with allergies to cephalosporins and what alternative therapies were appropriate based on their conditions.
12:00pm - lunch came around quick today! Mantha and Vee took us to lunch in the hospital cafeteria, where we tried pork belly, vegetables, and rice today. It was delicious :)
1:30pm - The afternoon consisted of a steroid test in a patient's supplement tablet. We had never done anything like this in the US, so this activity was very interesting to us. They were checking to see if this patient's tumeric compound had any steroid contained inside, and it ended up having a positive result!
We wanted to try someplace new for dinner, so we ended up walking the other direction from our apartment to this place called The Limb. It has breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee, tea, etc. and is cute! Megan had breakfast for dinner (egg's benedict) and Cynthia tried the fried chicken, spinach, and rice meal. Another thing this place has is amazing dessert! A lot of drink desserts to choose from, and you cannot go wrong. Megan ended up with a chocolate chip frappe that was to die for.
Wednesday, October 16th
8:00am - to the cafe we go, and off to rotation for 8:30am start. We did some more med recs with our buddies Mantha and Vee, and listened to some case presentations to their preceptor. We discussed different guideline recommendations for certain disease states that came up and compared medications available in the US and Thailand. Most medications have the same ending, but it was very interesting to see some new names we hadn't heard of yet!
12:15pm - We ended up at the hospital cafeteria with a papaya salad for lunch today. It was as delicious as the first time we tried it, and Megan could handle the spice (for now)!
1:30pm - the afternoon consisted of us looking up patients for case presentations in the morning. We were going to give our first patient presentation to our preceptor for these two weeks, so Mantha and Vee helped us translate the doctors notes, and some information on the patient profile.
5:30pm - two of the pharmacists from last week (Jan and Yun) picked us up from our apartment for dinner. Their plans were to show us a little more of Hat Yai at night. They took us to the Greenway Market (also called the night market) that is somewhat famous in Hat Yai. This market consisted of a numerous amount of food options, shopping places, and a live band. We ended up trying mussels, stir fry, and glazed chocolate sugar waffles for dessert.
We also finalized our plans for Krabi this weekend! Adventure #2 coming up on Friday, and we cannot wait to share it with you :)
Thursday, October 17th
There was a bad storm on Wednesday night that lead into Thursday morning, so our preceptor advised us to come in a little later this day. We used this time to work on our patient presentations and catch up on work from back home.
10:00am - We headed straight to the hospital for a presentation from Aum (6th year pharmacy student) on gram positive cocci in patients and appropriate treatment. We again compared the differences of treatment in Thailand and America for MSSA/MRSA prophylaxis, empiric treatment and chronic treatment.
12:00pm - Mantha, Vee, and Aum took us to a different cafeteria on campus for lunch. We tried the basil chicken with fried egg and brown rice for the first time. Again, like all of our food here, it did not disappoint. ;)
After lunch, we spent the rest of the afternoon looking up our patient for a case presentation on Friday. Mantha and Vee helped us translate the patient profile on the computer system, and prepare to present our patients to our preceptor Ann.
Later in the evening, it was still raining, so we decided to order another pizza to fuel us for the weekend coming up. We went to Amazon cafe to get some work done that night since we had missed it this morning (couldn't go a day without visiting our second home here). We came back and prepared to present our patient cases in the morning.
Friday, October 18th
8:00am - today was off to a better start with Amazon cafe up first on our list. We needed to get ready for our first presentation.
8:30am - We arrived at the ward and presented our patients to Ann, Mantha, and Vee. It was so much fun discussing patients and recommendations for care. We compared pneumonia, cancer, and dyslipidemia treatment in America and Thailand, and reviewed a few concepts about asthma as well. Overall, it was a great morning, and we really enjoy learning from them.
12:00pm - it was time for lunch! We ate with Mantha and Vee and had Guay Tiew Tom Yum (thai soup with noodles). This was our first time trying this, and now we want it every day for lunch it was so good!
Our preceptor for these two weeks (Ann) gave us a half day to get on our minivan to Krabi. Dr. Sutthiporn arranged a "took took" to take us to the van shuttle site, and a minivan ride to pick us up from 1:30pm. Head over to our Krabi weekend post if you want to finish this adventure!
Summary of the week: Overall, this week was very eye-opening in the internal medicine ward. We learned a lot of culture differences and treatment differences/similarities between Thailand and America. It was amazing to see healthcare from a different perspective, and appreciate this opportunity even more. We cannot thank our preceptor Ann, and the pharmacy students Mantha and Vee for giving us such an amazing week! We are pumped for week #2!