January 28, 2010 11:05
SUBJECT: Cases underway
Today we have scheduled 12 cases, but the cases we do change as the day progresses due to new patients as well as changes in priority.
We are caring for several people who have undergone amputations who then became infected before they could undergo final wound closure. As a result we are revising lots of these wounds. We will then bring them back for washouts until clean enough to close.
The first case was a young girl with open wounds on her legs and arms. We are hopeful she will not loose a limb, but she will need skin grafts when the wounds are ready.
The CRNA I am working with is intermittantly tearful, and has been all morning. Caring for the girl was hard for her. I don't know what family members she lost, and language barriers and work environment prevent me from talking about this. However, her courage in coming to work to continue to care for these folks is amazing.
Today we gave the anesthesia team some more if the supplies we brought. They are very grateful for the gifts provided by Penn. Thank you for allowing us to provide these supplies.
We are integrating our supplies with the existing supply chain with rare exception. This is appropriate, especially given that we are the only team here operating.
Patient flow is much improved now that we know each other. It has been fun working towards integrating our team into this hospital. I would like to think that while the beer helps, ultimately it is the skill of our surgeons that did the trick. That, plus their obvious compassion and efforts to treat everyone with respect.
Regards
Michael
DSS: I made minor edits for spelling, and a minor change in some of the wording.
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