"People just die here"

is the statement that my, visibly shaken, wife presented me with the other day upon returning home from work at the hospital. I realize that I am bias when I say this, but Lynn is an amazing doctor, and not just clinically. She deeply cares about every patient she involves herself with and she is determined to comfort and reassure every one of them. It was hard enough during her residency to have patients die under her care, but at least she knew that with all the tools of western medicine available to her, she had always made her very best effort possible at keeping those patients alive. So try to imagine now, in Uganda, where she has almost none of those life saving tools at her disposal yet she still cares deeply about every patient and is still determined to do everything possible to keep them alive.

So many problems compound each other here that by the time most patients make it to Lynn’s ward they are so sick that no amount of medical knowledge or care is going to make a difference. For example, most villagers will simply live with symptoms until they become unbearable. When they become unbearable, most will first seek a traditional healer. Then they will finally decide to go to the hospital, but many cannot afford the transportation so they wait until someone can eventually get them there. Patients arrive in the back seats of cars and probably even on motorcycle taxis and then proceed to the medical ward where they either get a bed or just lie on the floor because all of the beds are full, which is most of the time. Finally, Lynn and her team get to diagnose the very sick patient and then determine how to proceed with the little resources they have. This is where the countless stories of death begin and I know for a fact that she only tells me about a quarter of the stories. The saddest part is that most of the patients are very young, under 35, and have these terrible viruses, diseases, and cancers that are both preventable and treatable in the west but, sadly, not here. Lynn is a very confident doctor, even though she doesn’t think so sometimes, and I cannot fathom the turmoil she must feel on a daily basis watching patients die in front of her knowing that in another place more could have been done.

With that being said, she has also saved a great many people and, more importantly, she is teaching the next batch of local doctors every method possible to save lives once she leaves. In the end, this experience is surely going to make her a better doctor and I greatly admire the resiliency and compassion she continues to exude while going to work everyday knowing that “People just die here”.