2 Aug 2023
I flipped through the little portable health record booklet, or carnet, that the nursing student had just handed me for the patient who had just walked into the delivery room and was lying quietly on her side on a delivery table. I read the...
Staci Davenport
Posted on September 20th, 2023
12 Jul 2023
No, American friends, it’s not what you think. Caca is just an endearing Nangjere word for grandma (though all the Nangjere ladies giggle when I use the term, but not for the same reasons a five-year-old child or a five-year-old-at-heart a...
Staci Davenport
Posted on September 20th, 2023
18 May 2023
"Bonjour, Doctor, we have a woman here who has been waiting for her repeat cesarean section, and now she’s having contractions. She wanted to know at 4 am why we weren’t already calling the doctor at the first sign of low back pain because...
Staci Davenport
Posted on May 18th, 2023
29 Apr 2023
"He was playing in the house and something fell in his eye," the father explained. The patient’s older sister stood by, looking a little sheepish and guilty. Maybe she felt responsible since they were playing together. Maybe just an oldest...
Staci Davenport
Posted on May 18th, 2023
18 Apr 2023
I decided to write this for myself, to remember what I’m doing here, just in case I’m forgetting. You can follow along with my conversation with myself if you want.
I already had reasons before residency. I knew in medical school, in coll...
Staci Davenport
Posted on May 18th, 2023
22 Jan 23
As is so often the case here, the scars showed the location of the patient’s pain before he said anything. All over the 6 year old’s swollen abdomen, small groups of a few linear marks cut parallel to each other showed that traditional trea...
Staci Davenport
Posted on April 18th, 2023
17 Dec 2022
The buzzing phone dragged me back to consciousness. I noticed the Lock Screen blaring "hospital" in the darkness. Awareness came gradually. I noticed my sore throat, congestion, and general fuzziness. So much for sleeping off this cold/flu ...
Staci Davenport
Posted on December 28th, 2022
5 Dec 2022
"Salam aleikum. Comment ça va?"
"Oh, she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t speak any Arabic either," the nursing student explained.
"Jam!" I attempted.
Her face brightened and she returned the greeting. She and the student were able to exc...
Staci Davenport
Posted on December 28th, 2022
2 Dec 2022
"Oh, we’re all broken, in some way. Broken and haunted. . . There is more though. It’s not all sad. . . There is magic too." -Rana Awdish, In Shock
The apparently-magical side of medicine welcomed me back to clinical work in the hospital t...
Staci Davenport
Posted on December 3rd, 2022
2 Feb 2021
The woman writhed on the delivery room table, surrounded by female family members who fervently discussed among themselves, sometimes gesturing toward her, but not addressing her. She had been referred from the health center for prolonged l...
Staci Davenport
Posted on June 21st, 2021
