Caring for the Queen

I treated Queen Elizabeth today.  Yes, that was the name of the tiny febrile baby, born in the midst of the hype surrounding CHOGM and the royal visits to Uganda!  Queenie has become a rather popular name around here, and I have a second baby on the ward with just that name (no Elizabeth).  Also saw two babies named after local celebrities today:  Scott, the first baby born on the new maternity ward last July, to an HIV positive mother, his test results still pending but he looks great.  Parenthetically, she received a goat at the goat distribution which she also named Scott.  Scott the goat is providing milk for Scott the baby, who has weaned to try to save him from infection.  Later I dropped in on Baby Jonah, who smiled at me at 5 weeks, which I am sure is a sign of his precocity.  Being named after doctors is much better than one of my other patients, a now-4-year-old former premature baby boy born to an older HIV positive mother.  He was burdened at birth with not only HIV and prematurity, but the name Robert Mugabe.  I was sure his name fit his poor prognosis in life, and had no faith at all that he would make it.  But he’s fine, HIV negative and growing taller, and no one seems to mind that he’s named after an infamous dictator.  Perhaps that is because  names are so unimportant, countless times the parent has a blank stare when asked their child’s name, or their spouse’s name.  One of the services I offer I call “name consolidation”.  Many, many kids have major discrepancies between the names one parent or another or a grandparent use, one name on the immunization record and another name in the chart.  I resolutely insist that the mother choose the two names she wants to stick with and then I cross all the other ones out and rewrite her favorites on all official documents.  Even though no one but me really cares.