One man came in with what looked like a long scratch over his nose and a lip needing sutures. When I went to clean up the nose wound, the skin opened up and I found myself looking deep into the nasal cavity. Other diseases have markedly worse presentations than would be seen here, partly due to distance and cost of accessing care, partly due to traditional beliefs. Many village families have gone into poverty paying traditional healers, who often live like kings. One elderly woman came to the clinic after multiple visits to native healers had failed to cure the lump in her right breast.
Traditional beliefs figure into medicine in other ways as well.
One nurse insisted that a patient who died in the operating room had not in fact died, and had been seen walking in the capital. The body which had been in the operating room was a spirit double. I could swear she was serious and adamant in this belief. A doctor told me of one patient who came in with a nearly gangrenous great toe, which he wanted removed. When the doctor examined him, he found a string tied so tightly around the base of the toe as to cut off all circulation.