It was another beautiful day to be in the ward ‘saving lives’. I was in maybe my 2nd or 3rd week in the gastroenterology unit. I loved the experience so far, so much good ‘stuff’.
So we got to the female medical ward and we’ve got a new patient, guess what? She’s got Tuberculosis (TB). Yep, right there for the first time in my medical training experience. Although she wasn’t being managed for tuberculosis, she had issues with her liver and was currently Sputum Negative i.e. she was not contagious.
Despite the fact that she wasn’t contagious, I noticed my other colleagues seemed to back off unlike when around the other patients; maybe they were exercising extra caution so as not to get infected, because believe me we’d been taught the ugly pathophysiology of TB pretty well in the previous posting. We had enough information to make some run at the sight of such a patient.
While they backed off, the consultant continued his routine medical examinations, dealing with the patient like any other, which was quite admirable.
Also, worthy of note was the way the daughter of the patient cared for her Mother when she still had those terrible ‘productive’ coughs; which is pathognomonic of TB. She was so close and maintaining body contact, as though she had been completely cured (mind you she was sputum negative).
Later on, some of my colleagues came back to check the patient at the isolation ward. They were pretty relieved that there were some free face masks to protect themselves with, all to the amusement of the patient’s daughter, who found our company very entertaining.
I maintained my usual stance (very inquisitive and trying to have physical contact) for any patient as a result of some deep rooted beliefs about sickness and diseases.
Still, I felt the stigma was too high; the patient would have benefited from all of us being ‘normal’ around her as a reward for her taking her TB meds dutifully and achieving non-contagious status.
Adewolu Damilola
500 Level
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