Thursday, January 22, 2015

Pictograms for medication administration

How do you explain to someone who is illiterate when they need to take medications?  How about if there are 5 medications that they have to take?

I have joined with the pharmacy team from the Children's Hospital in Ottawa (CHEO) to develop and test pictograms to help patients understand how to take their medications.



Take 2 pills twice per day.

Take 5ml twice per day

Take morphine 1/2 tablet twice per day, when having pain 
Take 5ml every 4 hours

Tylenol: take for medium pain or fever

Welcome Back!

After almost 5 months in Canada, I'm back in Bangladesh.  Returning to the hospital was great!  The staff were happy to see me, especially the nurses who are keen to show off their improved English skills.  As part of the World Child Cancer funding we are able to give the nurses English lessons.  The lessons are important as many of the resources for pediatric oncology nursing that they need to access are in English.  Many of them have improved dramatically and are no longer shy to speak with me!

I am thrilled to have several visitors from Canada who are going to be working with me for the next few months.  Debbie is a nurse who I worked with in Canada, she brings 27 years of nursing experience to the ward. She'll be working with the nurses to continue to improve their practice.  She'll also be spending some time with the kids in the playroom.

Mari is a nutritionist and Masters in Public Health candidate from the University of Toronto who is doing a 3 month placement on the ward as part of her training.  She's working on nutrition related issues, assisting the doctors and nurses to improve the nutritional status of the children as more than half are moderately or severely malnourished.

The playroom is now open almost everyday as a dedicated team of volunteers comes to play with the children.  

Mari (left) and Debbie exploring the markets of Dhaka!