Global Health Week

This week is Global Health Week at Children's National! For the residents in the Community Health Track, that means a whole week of global health-related seminars, case discussions, and labs. So far, we've learned about the Millenium Development Goals, listened to speakers from USAID and the Baylor AIDS Program, made our own oral rehydration solution, and looked at malaria smears under the microscope, among lots of other really interesting activities.

As part of Global Health Week, our very own Binny Chokshi led a Global Health-centered Professorial Rounds today. For those of you who aren't interviewing on Thursdays, I'll do my best to explain one of the coolest parts of our program! Prof Rounds takes place at noon on Thursdays, and centers around the discussion of a difficult, interesting, or unique case that was seen by one of the residents. Just like in morning report, the presenter goes over the patient's HPI, exam, and pertinent results, but the attendings are the ones asking further questions and talking through their differentials. When we get stuck, we turn to the subspecialty attendings in the audience and ask them to share their expertise. It's an exciting way to learn not only about an interesting case presentation, but also pick the minds of the attendings and understand their thought processes when they see these kids.

Binny led a really interesting discussion about a 12 year-old girl she saw while working in a Baylor community HIV clinic in Malawi during her call-free elective month last year as a PGY-2. The patient presented with prolonged cough and fever in the setting of perinatally-acquired HIV and possible poor recent compliance with her HAART medications.

As you can see, the auditorium was packed with residents, attendings, medical students, nurses, social workers, and anyone else interested in the topic of discussion - the topic of each week's Prof Rounds is published across the entire hospital. We had a rousing discussion about lymphocytic interstitial pneumonia, immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome, and of course, TB coinfection with HIV, including the different testing methods that are available in low-resource settings and the very creative ways to obtain samples for diagnosis (did you know that gastric aspirates via NG immediately upon waking is a pretty good way to obtain a "sputum" sample in a young child?).

Overall, it was a great discussion. I hope you get a chance to experience Prof Rounds when you come to visit!