Day 9

Thursday is a very important day to hear about! It was quite possibly, the most exciting and satisfying day yet! :-)

So, at the end of the week for the group doing the health education presentations at the CDIs, they told the people that they would be giving physical exams on Thursday and Friday. They were planning on doing kids one day and adults the other. But Kevin and Jessica were supposed to leave by then, so they decided to do it all in one day....and didn't really know exactly what to expect. It could have been 200 people or 20. They brought along me, Johan & James (the other med students) and Jeremy (as another translator) so we would have more people to get through the exams, if need be. Well, it was a good thing we did!

Yesterday we got there around 9am or so and set up a clinic as best we could. The CDI made up a medical history form and Iris gathered that information from the people. Then, the girls from Wheaton + Leila did vitals in the front room. Kevin, James, Johan & I were in the second room, which was tiny and we split it in half sort of, so we could see two patients at a time. it was crowded when you account for 1 Dr. & 3 med students, 2 translators, 2 patients and sometimes an additional family member. At point is was really challenging, when we had a couple women who only spoke Quechua. So someone who spoke Quechua & Spanish translated to Jessica and she translated it to English! It was really going slowly so at lunch we sort of regrouped. Iris told us that some were upset because we weren't seeing children yet and the organization is sort of made for them. So we decided to see 3 people at a time, 2 adults & 1 child, all in the same room! Pretty crazy! I ended up doing the children physicals and after 2, we realized it was impossible to have 3 sets of doctors/students, translators & patients in the room. So we moved outside and with Leila's help, I got to give physicals to all the children! The healthy ones were easy of course, but the sick ones I passed on to Kevin to take a look at. It was rather frustrating though, because we had no medications... so other than advice like getting a lot of water & rest, even Kevin couldn't really do anything besides telling them to go to the doctor.

I loved checking the kids out though! It was funny to see their faces when I asked if they had a heart and they realized I was joking with them. One little girl was there with her 2 sisters, and she was so cute! She was really smart and kept playing with my stethoscope around my neck. When I finally got to her exam, I let her listen to my heart and lungs. She was so precious! One particular interesting thing about her, is that she had a sixth digit. It was like this little extra pinky size finger that grew out the side of her thumb. It was really interesting! Kevin referred her to the orthopedist at the Hospital of Hope to get it checked out.

Needless to say, when we left around 6:30/7 that night, we were all completely exhausted! It was the most patient contact that I and the other med students had had, just one on one and it was exciting to have that experience!

Finally coming around full circle, having experienced some women's healthcare in the spring and now some pediatric experience, I'm quite certain than family medicine is for me. I just love the variety and all the experience you get. It makes me more and more excited!

In other news, there some other exciting things worth mentioning. Well, first of all, I have gotten the whole flight change all taken care of. I am now staying until July 17th, since the cost of changing my ticket was about equivalent to the cost of staying here for a week. I don't really mind going home a bit earlier to spend more time with my family and relax. I will certainly be sad to leave though! But the REALLY exciting part, is that next Saturday we'll be going to the jungle! We are taking a day trip and will get to see the animals and all sorts of things! I'm super excited about it and will be beginning my malaria medication promptly!

Other than that, things are good. We are trying to get are groups to mesh and be more cohesive. Some of us who have been here feel like the groups are a bit separated. Today some surgeries are going on so everyone is trying to get it on those... a bowel resection & prostatectomy, then a C-section which I'm trying to go for, and then a gastric cancer surgery. On Tuesday I forgot to mention, one of the girls and I saw a circumcision on guy who was probably 16-20...weren't sure how old he was. That was interesting for sure.

Well, it's time for lunch so I better go! More updates to come later! Adios!