Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Swaziland

I had the incredible opportunity to travel to Swaziland, Africa in January to do an away rotation at the Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Clinic there. Swaziland is a small country and has the highest incidence of HIV in the world. It was very interesting to see the manifestations of HIV, especially in children as it is so rare in children in the States, and to see the success stories of anti-retrovirals! Here are some pictures from my trip: The beautiful clinic
The waiting room on a not so busy day...
The clinic's multidisciplinary team often saw well over 100 patients a day. And the model of the clinic is very cool in that while it's main focus is children with HIV, they also provide care for the family members of the children seen there, including prenatal care.
The front desk triage area...at the end of the day, normally the bins were stacked with charts.
The pastor's wife of the church we attended...volunteering in the pharmacy
Though it was summer there, it was also rainy season...and this is what the weather looked like the majority of days we were there. It was actually rather cool temperature-wise, and we would have to remove multiple layers off the children to examine them.
As usual for Jake, a picture of children playing the greatest sport on earth :)
Playing games and singing "The World's Greatest" at Teen Club, the clinic's support group for teens with HIV.
The NICU of a local hospital...essentially a very warm room.
an empty children's ward
My favorite part...playing with the children in the hospital :)
Finally some picture of the Swazi countryside
We had a really great trip and I so thankful I was able to go.
Jake also joined me at the end and we went on a fantastic vacation in South Africa, during which we took a zillion pictures...hopefully I will be able to sort through them and post some of them!

2 comments:

Kara said...

WOW! What a great opportunity! AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME! :)

Juanita G. Allen said...

Thanks for the pictures, it is a lot more modern that I was thinking it would be. What a blessing to give into those children's lives and a big YEA for the antivirals!! Can't wait for the elephant pics!!