Medical Elective in the Pacific Islands

Today, finally I managed to have my chance to do the one thing that most people visit Tonga for- swimming with humpback whales! Each year, hundreds of whales travel from the Antarctica and shelter in the tropical waters around Tonga to give birth, and this makes the island one of only a few places in the world where it's possible to swim with these majestic creatures. Needless to say it's a pretty awesome experience. Organising the trip had proved to be more difficult than I expected: I had a slot on Saturday booked and confirmed several times through my hostel owner, but on the Friday evening he told me that he hadn't actually ever booked it for me, which was incredibly unhelpful! Instead, I asked him to rearrange for next week, but just before I headed off this morning the tour operators called my guesthouse to let me know that they were cancelling the trips till next week due to high winds. One of the other girls was also booked to go out the same day with a different

The tourist attractions here on Tongotapu are a mixed bag, ranging from the underwhelming (Captain Cook's landing point), to the amusingly-bad (the three headed coconut tree) to the under-utilised (most of the beaches and coastline).  In all its glory By far my favourite of the things I've ticked off so far though, has been Anahulu caves. We headed down as a group one afternoon, after some of the others who'd already been, mentioned that there was a cave you could swim in, about thirty minutes from town. I wasn't necessarily expecting a lot, but it seemed a good enough way to kill a few hours. We arrived to find essentially a field, where a guy was sitting on a plastic chair. We each paid him 15TOP to turn on a rusty-looking generator, he pointed to a path leading towards the coast, and that was it. If you're thinking this sounds like the start of a cheesy horror film where a bunch of young brits get picked off one by one, you'd be pretty on the money

Today we made two very valuable contributions to ED. Firstly, we ran the place solo for an hour and half while the doctor went to lunch (he seems to have decided that we're pretty much competent if a little over-cautious) Secondly, and more importantly, we set up a WiFi router after everyone else had failed. We made the password Palangis2018, and since no-one else knows how to change it, I imagine our legacy will live on in Vaiola hospital for many years to come...! Spotted today in ED: The much honoured gift from the country of Japan of.... a filing cabinet. I'm a week in now, and I thought it was a good time to reflect a little about Tonga as a place. Nuku'alofa is lovely- possibly because of the need to rebuild recently, everything is very shiny and new to look at. There's also a lot of churches. More than you could ever think possible in such a small place! A church- in case you weren't sure what one is The people are all also very friendly an

This may shock you, but today I worked a full shift of 8:30 to 5 in ED, without even a lunch break. Are you proud of me? I certainly am!  We're still getting to do lots- we even get patients designated as ours by the consultant for who we have to do all the paperwork and referrals etc. which is pretty cool, even if he does sometimes tweak our plans first.  That's one way to discourage coffee breaks...! I'm also starting to see the limitations on healthcare here more too: today we discharged a patient with ?cauda equina, which would NEVER happen in the UK. Here, however, there's no MRI scanners to confirm the diagnosis and no surgeons who would be able to operate, so there's a certain grim acceptance here that patients will just have to go home and lose the function in their legs. I also got laughed at for suggesting taking a baseling HbA1c for a diabetic patient- apparently they rarely do baseline tests here, because of the associated cost. You live and l

Started for real in Vaiola Hospital this morning. The other students had told me that there was a) no point trying to find an administrator and b) Things kicked off at 8:30, so armed with this knowledge I headed off this morning in search of the ED. It was about five times smaller than I'm used to, so that took longer than planned, but luckily I spotted some of the others on the way in who were able to point me in the direction of an ambulance and I figured out the rest for myself! Outside the hospital   There's me and another girl in ED at the moment, and for a decent length of time we outnumbered the patients. Ellie claims that she's cursed, and whenever she's in ED no patients show up, but as the morning went on more and more trickled in. We saw a women post car accident, a nasty compound fracture, two cases of gastroenteritis, a 12y/o girl who keeps fainting in school, and a case of cellulitis. Overall, not too bad going!  The doctor was great- he let

Here in Tonga, Sunday is strictly a day of rest and religion, with most of the local population heading into church for a large chunk of the day. Almost all shops and restuarants are shut, catching a bus or taxi becomes near impossible and even working out is frowned upon. Not a bad place to spend a Sunday To pass the time, I headed with a group of other medical students to Pangaimoto, a popular island resort just twenty minutes from the harbour, where a huge chunk of the non-religious population gather on a Sunday. For only ~£15 you get a boat transfer, lunch, and free reign of a beautiful island and its white sand beaches. I was there from 11am till 5pm enjoying the sunshine, swimming in the calm water and playing card games in the shade when it got a bit too much. All in all a tough day!  You can climb up this sunken ship, and jump off into the sea Here is the first place I've spotted any signs of damage from the recent cyclone- when you head around the island yo