Pathology volunteering (and playing) in Kijabe kenya : End of week 1

Here’s an update after my first week in Kijabe! The jet lag is beginning to fade, and I’ve settled into the routine of working at the hospital. Each day I head in after a hearty breakfast, look over any cases from the previous day, then head to gross in the afternoon. After that the next batch of slides comes and the cycle repeats.

Some of the case highlights of this week included a mixed germ cell tumor, a Wilms tumor, and a case of Madura foot. This latter case was a rather unusual one, as the specimen was a tan white mass with numerous gritty black “stones” inside it. Dr Garcia, had never seen anything like it, but when we told our local pathologist colleague Rosemary about it, she immediately suspected Madura Foot. This condition, also known as eumycetoma, is a fungal infection of the skin, most commonly of the foot, and may develop after minor trauma where the wound is inoculated with fungus, which slowly spreads resulting in ulceration, deformity, and loss of function. Diagnosis is by biopsy with identification of fungal forms. Treatment is surgical resection or anti fungal medication. When we looked at our sample under the microscope Mx sure enough, there were numerous brown fungal colonies in the tissue! Brown colonies like the ones we saw are typically created by fungi of the genus Madurella, Pyretochaeta, Exophiala, or others .

Other than the exciting cases, we also visited Rosemary’s house for authentic home cooked Kenyan food as well as visited a global cuisine restaurant called Talisman to bid farewell to Dr Garcias mother, Ginger before she left to return to the US.

I’m looking forward to the weekend! Tomorrow we will climb Mt Longonot, and probably take it easy on Sunday.