CMSA Accreditations: None
Rural Allowance: Yes
Doctors Quarters:
- No comments yet.
Academics:
- All of my knowledge and management of patients came from internship. The senior doctors (myself and another Comm serve being the only other doctors) had outdated clinical knowledge. Once a month the district obs and paeds docs come by for meetings if you need advice. No one teaches you but we were expected to do bi-weekly academic presentations to teach the rest of the staff.
Supervision:
- Calls were done alone. No senior doctors available. Can call Frontier Hospital (referral Hospital) for advice but they are severely understaffed and very impatient with few specialists, so the advice is often basically your own level. I also called East London CMH for advice when I was getting bad advice from Frontier but they obviously can’t accept the patients.
Clinical Exposure:
- You get exposure to everything from OPD, trauma, paeds, obs, medical and surgical patients. But it is often overwhelming with little to no supervision and poor stock of drugs and equipment. You perform all kinds of procedures, chest drains, deliver babies (midwives are always there and excellent), and can opt to perform C/S or do the aneasthetics. No equipment for CVP or ALines unfortunately. You do antenatal scans, which was self taught with a bit of help from the district obs doc. So if you have the skills, there is ample opportunity to do things independently.
Departments worked in:
- Paediatrics, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Anaesthetics, Emergency Department, OPD’s - "You chose your own ward and you were in charge of that ward. I ran the obs ward as well as paeds, neonates and KMC. Calls were done in the ED Full day and night with no post call. I also did all the spinals/anaesth in theatre while the clinical manager performed the C/S. I relied on my training from internship and had the EDL for paeds and adults on me at all times.
It was a daunting and stressful experience, but I came out with independence and confidence. "
Social Scene:
- The closest town is about 40min away. Komani is a small town with very little social life. Some restaurants but no night life or malls
Additional Comments:
- "They were trying hard to recruit more doctors and staff.
They have a small NHLS lab and xrays during office hours. I believe a physio joined after I left as well. Possibly improved from my experience. "
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