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.