Looking back over what has felt like a month but in reality only been a few weeks I am blown away by what we have been able to witness and experience. Before coming, I knew very little about the medical situation in Nepal. I understood that resources were limited, but that was it. After being immersed in various hospitals for over a week, I now better understand what this looks like. 

United Mission Hospital Tansen is a charity hospital whose purpose is to serve its community and spread the love of God. Many places claim to serve their community, with the community’s best outcome as a central point, but what I witnessed was this talk of service being put into true action. It’s even written on their building, “We serve, Jesus heals”. We had the privilege of following around doctors in various wards during the week, to see almost every department by the time we left. I learned on these rounds that doctors look very holistically at each patient. This means that the medical problem is assessed, and solutions are determined to better the patient’s situation. Doing this practice is basic medicine, doing this holistically is hard. The doctors also evaluate the patient’s financial standing, home life, access to resources, and many other factors. I saw and heard about great examples of this being done in the hospital. One example in particular that was told to me was of a patient with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This patient was not very well off financially, but treatment was being provided for the COPD at a rate he could actually manage. Doctors suspected that there may be more going on, perhaps lung cancer, but determined that screening would not be done, because he was already quite aged and they concluded that even if a cancer diagnosis came, there would be no change in his care plan. So even though that diagnosis could give doctors a more concise written answer, it would have no benefit to the patient and would also cost much more. That is what true holistic medicine is and looks like, evaluating the whole of the patient’s situation, not just what can be written in a chart. 

Apart from hearing that situation, I also witnessed the doctors truest intent in delivering the best care to all their patients by serving them and knowing them. In the United States, rounding is becoming non-essential since all charting is online and patients situations are easily accessible to the doctors. Here in Nepal however, rounding is an everyday occurrence. Every doctor from that specific ward walks around to evaluate all new patients together, introducing a very team-based atmosphere. They proceed to talk about the patient, with the patient and the team, for however long is needed to begin to determine what the best care plan moving forward is. I really enjoyed seeing this, as it destroyed the hierarchy so commonly seen in the hospital by brining the patient to the level of the doctor, and the doctor to the level of the nurse, and the nurse to the level of the patient. The open communication and collaboration led to really understanding every patient that was there as a person, not just a chart with a medical problem. 

Overall I have been amazed at the team atmosphere in Nepal, that everyone helps everyone within the hospital setting to ensure the best care is given to every patient, and that the care plan is assigned to them evaluating all the variables not just those in a chart.