Maybe the faculty noticed that we were a little homesick, or maybe they just wanted to try American food, but they asked us to cook a traditional Thanksgiving meal. We excitedly planned a menu and quickly realized common items like canned green beans, Nila wafers, and instant pudding are not easy to find in Hat Yai. After a few faculty shuttled us around to every nearby grocery store to hunt for ingredients, the finalized menu included: green bean casserole, creamed corn, toasted french bread (heavily buttered by Thai students upon Kelly's request), mashed potatoes, Kraft macaroni and cheese, rotisserie chicken (faculty provided), and blueberry cheesecake. It's been our experience that it's more expensive to cook in Thailand than to eat out so a lot of Thai people don't cook at all. Important to note, in Thailand an "oven" is a toaster oven. Lots of pictures of food and our new friends below. Our non traditional "Friendsgiving" meal turned out to be an awesome experience!
While in the hemodialysis unit we (Janie and Kelly) learned about both hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. While we tend to use many of the same practice guidelines, our preceptor had us look into a few Japanese guidelines as well. Our preceptor explained the importance of referencing multiple guidelines (just like in the US) and also noted they prefer to use large credible studies with an Asian population to increase the external validity to the people of Thailand when possible. The most memorable event of the week was getting to go on a home visit to a peritoneal dialysis patients home. The ride to the house was an adventure in itself since it was located in a rural area with rubber tree farms. The home health care team included a nurse who is exclusively a peritoneal dialysis nurse and her assistant, one pharmacist, and four pharmacy students (including Janie, Liz, and Kelly). The patient demonstrated the technique of peritoneal dialysis while the healthcare team watched. The pharmacist went over the medications with the patient and checked for understanding and adherence. The patient was very gracious to let us into his home to allow us to take pictures of the experience. To summarize two weeks worth of time spent in the hematology ward in just a few sentences, Liz has learned a lot about leukemia. She gets to the hospital around 8AM and rounds with the hematology team consisting of several doctors and pharmacy students. Translation during rounds has been crucial to understanding the treatment of patients. She got to attend hematology grand rounds in which a physician led a discussion and presented slides of cancerous cells on a really neat microscope. She finished observing and learning in the hematology ward after giving a presentation on acute myeloid leukemia to pharmacy faculty and students. Next stop, medical ICU!
Next blog will recap the beautiful island Koh Lipe!
JKL
