Lost in Translation

Today I had a Haitian nurse working with me as an assistant. I was showing her how to clean wounds and treat other minor injuries. I had a little boy come in who had a bad rash on his bottom and in front. I cleaned his rash and put ointment on it and then covered it in non-stick band-aids and taped it up. The Haitian nurse had watched me, so I told her to do his front side while I went to get some antibiotics. When I returned, his legs had been poorly taped with tape that wasn’t sticking and she was in the process of wrapping up his penis! It was hard not to either yell at her or burst out laughing, but I corrected the situation while acting like it was intentional. Sometimes depending on where injuries are you have to do a little creative engineering, but sometimes you are just not going to be able to wrap up everything the same way.