Francesca Isabel Tang | MD 16-0075 LEC 17B+18

Reflection Week 2 September 13, 2019

When you think of home visits, immediately that comes to mind is a scenario wherein
barangay health workers (BHWs) would go from house to house, in order to check-up on
patients who haven’t been able to or cannot follow-up at the health center, in order to
determine the state of health of the patient. This was exactly what we did on this week’s
tuesday and thursday, except we only had to follow one patient from our last OPD encounter
the week before.

Just a quick context on my patient, both mother, younger brother and my said patient
came in to the center due to the complaint of cough, cold, a mouth sore and tooth pain. His
younger brother had a consult for cough and colds. Both siblings were well-dressed, and so
was the mother. Basically, they looked a little bit well off than other patients coming in at the
center. Therefore, you can imagine they would also live in a house that’s built better than
others.

So imagine my surprize on the day of our first home visit when Ate Luz and I went to
their home. It was located across the street from the gasoline station, down an alley where at
the end, was their house wherein it wasn’t even made of cement but more of plywood. There
were definitely dogs present around, which confirmed a possible source for their allergy. And
when I entered their home, it had a low clearance, beds were situated low and near the
ground, the house was not well-lit, and had no adequate ventilation as they only had one
window.

So at the back of my mind, this clearly showed how the children at their homes were
exposed to a lot of agents for potential illness. Yet, what redeemed the day was how the
patient was getting better, and how the mother was compliant with his medications. At least,
you can see that the mother is well invested into their health to a certain degree, but
definitely can improve especially in the dental department of her kids.

This particular aspect of Community Pediatrics was something that really lingered in
me as this aspect of home visits shows the continuity of care of patients and to be able to
track their progress regarding their illness, and at the same time, be able to hand-ons see
what their situation is which can clearly affect the health of the family living at a particular
home as the psychosocial aspect of life can affect the health of a person in general. So this
was a perfect chance to experience it, and was grateful to an extent that I was able to
follow-up on my patient for the two instances of home visits. And happy to report that my
patient is getting better.

Overall, I really enjoyed Community Pediatrics as it tackles the side of public health
we rarely see in the hospitals, especially in the private setting. It gave us a chance to pick on
the public health side of our brain not only in creating sustainable projects for the community
but also finding alternative ways to treatment, and to be able to holistically address the
person’s illness in more ways than medical through the home visits.