Just Another Day at HELP

Dr. Noe (from RDC) Dr. Loes (from Arizona) and their interpreter Destin, finishing up seeing the outpatients:

Drs. Esther and Tim; siblings from the south of England, doing a hernia surgery together. Since I was translating for them, I was thankful that they didn’t need much assistance from the staff for this one. Mostly I just got them what they needed, and explained to one of the circulating nurses how to do local anesthesia for a hernia. He was very impressed with Esther’s method and wanted to know exactly how she’d done it.

“When I was assisting Tim I was very good and didn’t give him a hard time, but then when it was the other way around, Tim was very naughty and told me everything I was doing wrong.” – Esther

Dr. Harvey and Boniface looking at the ultra-sound machine to try to align this man’s broken femur. Moving the external fixation pieces around and pulling on his leg to line up the bones was unsuccessful so they did surgery again.

 

Boniface and Tim on rounds in the surgical wards. For lack of someone better, I was serving as interpreter for them that day. Never an ideal situation because my skills as translator are well below average. Maybe that’s why Boniface’s expression is a mix of concern and mystification. Oh well, I do my best.