Grace Chew’s Blog

27/2/2009: Day 16, Kapuna Hospital

We’ve been giving lessons in applied anatomy and
physiology to the CHW students these few days.
The class, 16 girls and 8 guys (I think), are
from many different backgrounds and English
proficiencies, and not knowing where they’re
coming from makes it hard to determine how to
explain which way to go. There were many times
when I looked into the sea of blank faces after
trying to explain a relatively simple concept
again. Thankfully there are some bright buttons
in the bunch, and a nodding head is a much needed
shaft of light in the dark cave.

We had the first few modules, which were
introductory in nature- dealing with anatomical
and medical terms, an overview of the systems in
the body, general cell biology, and finally skin
anatomy and physiology. Later on we taught them
the cardiovascular and lymphatic systems. I
foresaw difficulties in taking the class about
anatomical and medical terms, especially as the
first class we were teaching, but Ruth was
wonderfully patient with them, going through each
term and concept a few times to make sure they
understood. My sessions were fast and merciful,
to me at least! I thought they all understood,
because I asked the class collectively and most
of them answered yes, but Ruth made sure each one
understood. Anyhow, out of the 5 hours for each
module, we probably used an average of 3 per
module, leaving them ample time to copy relevant
information from the textbooks and revise. Or at least I hope they did.

Picking the right word, and doing self-editing in
the milliseconds between thinking of a word and
actually saying it, was the big challenge for me.
Often I’d find my lips already forming a word
when my brain flags it up: “Wait! I don’t think
they understand that!!” but by then it’s too late
and I’ve said it, and I have to find ways of
explaining the word/term. I found knowing
something about word origins helped me here, for
example I like to think that my breaking the word
“homeostasis” down to “homeo-”, meaning
same/similar (I think!) and “-stasis”, meaning
stay, helped them remember the concept of
homeostasis as the body’s way of maintaining a
proper environment for its essential activities.
Then that came in useful in haemostasis – the
process of making the blood stay. It made sense
to me anyway, and I think it made sense to them!

Picking the right examples to use was a challenge
too. For example, how do you explain how a white
blood cell recognize bacteria as pathogens? I
ended up using the concept of antibodies as
stickers that stick on enemies of the body (e.g.
bacteria), and if you have a sticker on you the
white blood cells eat you up. Then the lymph
nodes in the lymphatic system (how do you explain
about the lymphatic system to someone?!)- I used
the analogy of the lymph nodes as gates in the
wall of an important city, and the white blood
cells in the lymph nodes as guards at the gates
who scan the incoming traffic and get rid of any
troublemakers. For some reason after I talked
about the spleen they were really interested in
how to treat an enlarged spleen. But for a nation
with a lot of malaria cases, I probably shouldn’t be so surprised.

I didn’t get to learn all their names, but I’d
have forgotten them promptly anyway. I did go
through how to feel a pulse (important skill for
CHWs!) one-on-one, and hopefully they’ll always
remember that I taught them that. Haha That being
said, I hope they don’t fare too badly after
having two guest teachers who they probably only
at most three quarters-understand, and will graduate with flying colours!