Vryheid Provincial Hospital

Community Service Reviews KwaZulu-Natal
, ,
1

CMSA Accreditations: None

Rural Allowance: Yes

Doctors Quarters:

  • No comments yet.

Academics:

  • Friday morning meetings. Think only a monthly academic meeting. The hospital sent me on a 2 coursed during my time there. Cost me nothing

Supervision:

  • A few good MO’s in anaesthesia and O&G. But in other departments, you’re alone. Anesthesia, O&G and Ortho had outreach programs in place. There was a Burns Hotline with surgeons in Pietermaritzburg that we’re always happy to advise on management and try and transfer the patient across if they had beds.

Clinical Exposure:

  • It’s rural KZN. People present late (or are missed when they present early to the clinics). You’ll see a wide variety of pathologies. Good O&G experience, limited anaesthetic experience. Insubstantial surgical experience. Medical wards are chaotically busy, with zero assistance from regional/tertiary centers. They demand extensive workup of patients not always feasible at VDH - some tests can’t be done (BMATs), some get sent away and takes weeks or gets lost. Patients die waiting for results to transfer. Ortho has okay exposure. They had weekly outreach from NewCastle and you could call them for advise. ED exposure is good only because of the pathology and volumes you see.

Departments worked in:

  • Internal Medicine, Surgery, Paediatrics, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Anaesthetics, ARV clinic, Emergency Department, OPD’s - They received Orthopod and O&G and anaesthetic outreach services per arrangement. They had a Surgeon that did minimal procedures (amputations, fasciotomies, rarely laparotomies). Not great for surgical exposure.

Social Scene:

  • You’ll have to make friends in town and in the hospital. There’s no movies or mall. There’s nature reserves, mountain hiking trails, braaiing next to a dam, rural KZN with rugged 4x4 tracks.

Additional Comments:

  • I’d go back any time. Was an incredible experience. You are limited with what you can do, but you can still make such a big difference in the patient’s lives.

:left_speech_bubble:Please contribute to this conversation by replying to this topic.