1. I saw my first cholera patient. Chances are most American medical students will never see a cholera patient. Positive skin sign, not alert, severely dehydrated, severe diarrhea and vomitting. He couldn't have been more than five years old. His mom looked at him with sadness and hopelessness in her eyes while Dhaka rushed around her in its intoxicating whirlwind.
2. The meaning of out-patient will never mean the same to me. During the diarrhea waves, the ICDDR has to set up make-shift tents of bamboo OUTside to accommodate the thousands of diarrhea patients it gets. We went to the tent during our tour of the hospital with our white coats (and heavy material--unsuitable for equatorial temperatures) and immediately the patients and their families got up from their beds to look at us. Patients who were laying down on beds with circular openings on their bottoms so that their stool can fall right down to the bucket placed underneath the wooden bed got up to look at our white coats.
3. I didn't come to Dhaka to buy shaliwar kameezes that I will never again wear in my life. I didn't come to eat Bengali food. I didn't come for the possible tourist excursions outside of Dhaka and Bangladesh. I came to see these patients. I have absolutely nothing to offer them but I will never forget what cholera, intestinal tuberculosis, marasmus, kwashiorkor and hopelessness look like.
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