Happy Thanksgiving

I miss not spending this day with my family, but I am thankful that Bleu and Tausi made it up to Seattle to spend the holiday with Brigita and Indi. I just wish that I was there......... I am thankful for all the blessings this life has given me, especially my family. 

We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving today. We had our Thanksgiving dinner last Saturday. The galley staff prepared an awesome meal with all the traditional fixings and we had our first 2-day weekend. Unfortunately the weather was not very good so I spent it running in the “Gerbil gym” and watching movies on my computer. I ran 10 miles on the treadmill; it was a pretty boring 1 hour and 45 minutes. But I am on track with my training program for the half marathon in January.

Two of my co-workers Anne Borden (Nurse Admin) and Dr Mark Peterson

Dr Tom Hoffman

 The clinic is getting busier, we currently averaging about 20 patients/day. Nobody that needed to be flown to New Zealand yet. I am starting to think I am not going to do any transports at all this season. This was not really what I expected about the job here. It feels very frustrating and I am getting really bored here. 

Gallaghers which is one of the bars here in McMurdo on Thanksgiving

We just switched out our military flight nurse and aeromedevac tech. Now we have a RN named Chris who is stationed on Okinawa and Jay that is a reserve member from Oklahoma. They both seem to be very nice and positive about being here. They will be here until beginning of January when the last military group for this summer season is coming down here. 

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OB hill from Arrival Heights

Soccer in Antartica

Wednesday is soccer league night. We have a recreational soccer league here on the station. I am playing for Terra Nova Hotspurs. So far we have won every game. First game against Real McMurdo with 25-4, second against FC Erebus 23-10 and tonight against the Kiwis with 27-7. It is great to get some exercise and get to know some more people here.

 Today I volunteered in the kitchen and I was cleaning green beans for the green bean casserole for 2 ½ hours. Not a lot of fun, but nice to contribute with something for the Thanksgiving dinner we are having this weekend, which also means we are having a 2 day weekend. That is going to be really nice, I think this is the only 2 day weekend we have the whole season. Not like I have big plans for the weekend, but it is still nice to have 2 days off. Probably going to try to hike the longest hike here on Sunday which is approx. 9 miles long.

Hat I had to wear when I worked in the kitchen

I have also decided to run the Half marathon here in January so I am training for that. So far it is going ok, I ran 8 miles the other day and it felt really hard until I passed 5 miles and after that I felt like I could run another 10, but I stopped at 8 miles as my training schedule says. I have been running on the treadmill, but my cold weather running clothes arrived today. they were mailed by Bleu and Tausi last week from AZ (Thank you Bleu and Tausi!!). I was surprised how fast they got here. I wasn't expecting it to arrive until next month. They are saying that since the last C-17 flight is tomorrow and they are not returning until mid-January the mail and freshies will not arrive as often. From now until mid-January the flights from here to New Zealand will be done by LC-130s.

It is starting to get really warm here, almost above freezing  (around 30F). I understand why the town’s nickname is “McMuddo”. The sun will melt the ice during the day and all the roads are just mud and then in the evening it freezes again.

"McMuddo", it is still below freezing temps

"McMuddo"

We got a new flight surgeon yesterday, Dr Steve Norris from Peoria, IL also a Colonel. All our military staff in medical is going to be changed out this week and next. They are great guys to have around. Don’t know who the new Flight RN or Aeromedevac tech is yet.

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MCI Drill

Today we had the MCI drill. In previous post I mentioned the training that we held here at the clinic prior to the drill. This is a drill that happens once every season. This year the scenario was dorm fire. We had 11 victims that did a great job with playing victims. We were supposed to have 12, but I think one guy that was supposed to be triaged as black just walked off. we heard rumors about a "dead" person that showed up in the medical clinic where the lab people were waiting for patients to be brought over from the casualty collection point.
Being in a very remote location and with very limited resources a lot of volunteers are needed. Everybody in town are called upon to help. We hope that it will always just be drills and never have to put the system in to action for real.

Getting ready at the Casualty Collection center

Fire Department responds to the incident

Getting things ready

"Patients" starting to arrive, Dr Peterson directing traffic

Yellow treatment area

Green treatment area

Pharm tech back at medical waiting for med orders to fill

Our lab volunteers waiting for samples to process

Eating in McMurdo

All meals at McMurdo station is served in the galley, there is no other options. They used to have a burger bar in one of the bars, but that is no longer in service.

The galley staff is cooking for approximately 800 people 3 times a day.  I think the station population is 792 today. There are more people coming in every day. Mostly grantees that are here on station for a few days before they head out to their field camps. We currently still have freshies being flown in and that means salad with lunch and dinner, fresh eggs for breakfast for those who want that.

We also have “Frosty Boy” in the galley, which is an ice cream machine. The galley staff like to experiment with different flavors every week. So far the experiments have been both hits and misses. The worst one so far has to be the “pear blue cheese” flavor, with “Fat Elvis” (peanutbutter, vanilla, bacon) coming in as a close second. The good has been Turkish coffee and Mexican chocolate (spicy flavor). Regular vanilla icecream with select toppings will always work as well. There is still a lot of time for them to continue to challenge our tastebuds. The other day we had Pho and it was very good, the baked goods for dessert here are very good. It is a good thing that I have decided to run the half-marathon here in January and I am training accordingly for it. That helps to equal out the desserts that have to be tasted. That is one area they are doing an excellent job in. The baked goods here are awesome.

Yesterday was the first day in awhile we saw blue skies and sunshine. It felt nice and warm in the sun and it is the first time since I got here that the sunshine felt warm.

Work is still pretty slow and I am trying to find things to do, both in the clinic and around the station. I am hoping to be able to tag along with a science group and get out in the field and help them or just observe them.  One of the places I would like to go and visit is the Dry Valleys, but it seems like it is one everybody’s list so it will be hard. The Southpole is still on my list as well.

New people arrive to McMurdo

Mode of transportation from the air field one of the Deltas

Our Pharmacy tech hard at work

McMurdo General Hospital

McMurdo General Hospital is where I am spending most of my time. We have not had a need to fly anybody off the continent yet. I guess we are all happy that nobody has got injured or sick enough to warrant a transport off the "Ice". A lot of times when patients get transported off to New Zealand for care, they don't come back. They usually NPQ (Not Physically Qualified), it all depends on what their diagnosis is. It is a big fear for a lot of people since for a lot of people this is their only job (more about this in a later post). Below are some pictures from the inside of the "Hospital". The space is old, some of the equipment is old but still funtional. The biggest headache is the inconsistency with medical equipment. We currently have 3 different kinds of monitors in here. UTMB is trying to stream line things and put processes in place to make it more efficient. It is a slow process.

Patient triage area, SSGT Lopez manning the post

Pt waiting area

Patient treatment area in the clinic

Patient care bay

In-patient area and my desk

Denstist chair. We don't have a dentist this year, but the MDs can fix small things

Lab

X-ray room

Hyperbaric chamber

Pharmacy

Break/meeting room

We see on average about 8-12 patients/day. The staffing is 2 MDs, Flight surgeon, 1 PA, 1 Nurse Admin, 1 civilian and 1 military flight nurse, 1 Aeromedevac tech, 1 X-ray tech and 1 pharmacy tech. We do keep patients over night if needed to. We usually split it up between us nurses who is going to stay. 

 

Time lapse video

Here is my first attempt on creating a time lapse video. I set up my camera to take a picture every minute for 24 hours. It started at 7pm. The view is from my dormroom window. I posted it on Facebook but was removed for possible copyright infringement. I will try to get another one done later when it is actually sunny for 24 hours.





Time lapse 1 from Jonas Landstrom on Vimeo.

MCI training

Working in a remote location like this gives us some unique challenges. If there would be an occasion where there would be more than 2 trauma patients that would be brought in from any accident it would be considered a MCI (Mass Casualty Incident). We have 2 primary bays in medical with equipment to stabilize the patients until they can be transported out of here, so if there would be more patients there is another casualty collection point set up. Our job as medical providers would be to ensure that we are prepared for the worst. The station wide MCI drill in scheduled for mid November. We have 3 MDs, 1 PA and 3 RNs on the station, so we are going to need some assistance if there would ever be a MCI. Part of our responsibility is to train volunteers to help out with medical care during a MCI. We are fortunate that we have EMTs, WFR (Wilderness First Responder) and a couple of former paramedics that has signed up to be medical volunteers. We will train them how to prepare IV bags, review different first aid scenarios (burns, hypothermia, splinting and etc), document and how to do vital signs and record them. Every Friday afternoon until we have the drill is our training day. We also train people to take x-rays, run labs and the walking blood bank. We will hopefully never have to experience a MCI here, but you never know. As I wrote in one of my earlier posts we were close to have one activated the day we arrived when our airplane that we flew in on was literally running out of fuel.

Below are some pictures from our training.

Dr Liz talking about burn and hypothermia care

Our volunteers listening to Dr Liz

Lt Col Dr Watts reviewing splints

Heather Porst (PA) doing lab training