On Thursday (I think it was it Thursday), we had a patient who had quite the commute to see the allergist--all the way from Okinawa, Japan. He moved to Okinawa about two years ago, and about a year ago, began to notice a really itchy rash that instead of going away, got larger. He tried allergy medicine, tried washing his uniform every day, and tried just about everything else that people recommend for exzema. It got so bad that he was going into sick call almost every day, and had to be transferred from his job outdoors to an office job. Finall, his PA got him an appointment with the one dermatologist at Okinawa (after a few months waiting, of course). They tried him on over 20 different medicines; some made it slightly better, some did nothing. Finally, they got him an appointment with the closest allergist, which just happened to be COL Yang here at Tripler.
So we saw him and said, yep, that's exzema. So we got him some different medicines, one that he had tried and two that he had not, and then sent him back to Japan and told him to continue following up with the dermatologist. Hopefully this will take care of it. Since he can't really do his job with this exzema, the next step is to move him away from Okinawa, probably back to El Paso, TX.
Anyway, that was the most exciting patient all week (week-ish, I guess). Yesterday I walked down to the NEX at Pearl Harbor (about 4.5 miles) and did some shopping (not much, since I had to walk back). Today was another diving day. We went out of Waianae Bay, which is on the west side of the island (Tripler is close to the south). It was beautiful weather for diving while we were diving, then it instantly started raining as soon as we got the boat back to dock. Here's a picture from the boat.
I didn't get back to base until about two, and then I was tired from diving, so I didn't do much the rest of the afternoon. Then around six (when it started raining again), a couple of other students and I grabbed a cab and went down the NEX for dinner and do some grocery shopping.Tomorrow, it's back to work, for my last (and second) full week of work at Tripler.
2 comments:
Gosh, if the poor guy had to wait that long to see an allergist, wouldn't government run health care be great?
Yeah. And as I've seen from working in this clinic, when your paycheck isn't dependent on the number of patients you see, there's really not much incentive to see many patients. COL Yang and LTC Marks each see about six or seven patients a day... no wonder it takes 2+ months for a new patient allergist visit around here.
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