Global Health Neurology Program - Ming's Story

Ming Tsao's Story

Global Health Scholar 2014-2015 

My rotation was in at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre, Malawi's second largest city. The hospital is a public hospital that serves as a referral center for most of Southern Malawi. The rotation was divided between clinical duties and research duties. My clinical work involved seeing adult and pediatric neurology patients on the inpatient service and in the outpatient clinic I worked with both medicine and pediatric registrars who were eager to learn more about neurology. Resources were limited, though luckily an MRI machine had been donated to the hospital. Common diagnoses I saw included migraine, Alzheimer's dementia, various epilepsy syndromes, stroke, transverse myelitis, cerebral malaria, HIV dementia, and toxoplasmosis. The other half of my rotation was acting as a research assistant for a project investigating the treatment of cerebral malaria in pediatric patients and also a neurology consultant for research patients. I read EEGs and made recommendations on work-up and treatment. During my free time I explored Southern Malawi and went hiking, swimming at a nearby waterfall, and went on a short safari.