Lara dragged her feet, wiping her hand on the tissue and chucked it into the bin. She had no idea which was tougher, medical school or her clinical internship.
This month, she was on rotation in the Gynaecology and Obstetrics department and she had every reason to say this was her roughest department yet.
Patients were always around and they were extremely sensitive. Expectant mothers, Females with uterine conditions; Just females in general. Taking a deep sigh, she opened the door of the restroom to go back to the consultation room.
That five past minutes was her little moment of respite and Lara hated it was over, she left her colleague with a shouting and rude Primi, who wanted to see the doctor for an ante-natal care but had to wait an extra 15minutes.
Rubbing her glabella, Lara prepared herself for the onslaught of shouts and possible insults that may be thrown her way as she approached the waiting room.
“Dr. Adedara”
She turned, it was an older nurse calling her.
“Yes ma’am ?”
“Please tell the consultant that O.R 4 is ready for his evening surgery and the baby with Neonatal asphyxia has been transferred to Pediatrics department”
“Noted ma’am” Lara braced herself once more, pushed the door open and walked in.
It was quiet.
That was odd.
The patients were seated in their seats with different kinds of emotions in their faces. Pain, sorrow, hurt, embarrassment, discomfort. There was however one source of sound and it was coming from the consultation room.
As Lara approached the room, it became louder.
The sound of a female crying.
She paused at the door and then turned back giving the woman some respite and going to stand beside the young nurse who was in the waiting room.
“It is the patient whose baby is suffering from Anencephaly” The Nurse nudged her.
“Anencephaly?” Lara whispered back.
“Yes, do you know what it is?”
“Anencephaly is a condition where the cranial vault portions of the brain do not develop properly and so there is a major absence of the skull, major regions of the brain and the scalp.
It occurs during embryonic development and occurs at the end of the first trimester. She’s in the end of her 2nd trimester, why is she just being aware?”
“ Ultrasound findings tend to be normal until ossification had completely failed.
Although this can be noticed at the end to beginning of the 2nd trimester, she couldn’t do an ultrasound in the past 2 weeks.
Dr. Morton just broke the news to her”
“Anencephaly is caused by a range of reasons from environmental to nutrition to genetics, even drugs!
It can’t be treated now, can it?”
“No, it can only be prevented, now whether she chooses to carry the baby to term or undergo an abortion, the loss of the foetus is inevitable”. The Nurse looked away slight tears in her eyes.
Lara looked over to the door with loud cries coming from it, to the quietness of the other patients who were sensitive enough to know certain things were wrong and then back at the nurse who was younger than her but had more experience with a stiff smile on her face and sighed, even with all the applications of embryology and pathology she learned in med. school, this was her first time seeing how each one affected it’s victims emotional and psychologically wise.
Writer Details:Temidayo✍️
Location:Ekiti State University,Ado Ekiti,Nigeria🇳🇬.
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