It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m not really sure where the week
went. Obviously my blogging spirit has been lacking, but I will do my best to
re-cap the past 7 days in some key highlights:
1 Clinic (Tuesday): Dr. Dorothy, another
missionary, arrived on Monday. She is an internal medicine MD who decided to
house an open clinic at the parish. My superhero partner, Vanessa, (she’s my
hero because she saves me from floundering through my Spanish) was asked to interpret for Dr. Dorothy. While
she interpreted, I performed intake and discharge. My responsibilities involved
gaining a medical history, current medical concerns, BP reading, glucose
monitoring, filling prescriptions, and performing discharge teaching. One of
the benefits of having made it through the entire week before recapping my
experiences in the blog, is that I am able to have clear insight into my most
memorable and favorite moments – this was hands down, the best clinical
experience of the week. I had a blast learning from Dr. Dorothy’s assessments and
I was able to gracefully improve my Spanish skills as I worked one-on-one with
patients. I learned that the most common ailments are everyday “pains,”
arthritis, and untreated hypertension.
2 EEK! ER (Tuesday): I had my “first” second
experience in the ER (duh, duh, duh…). Aside from it being the place where I
severed my tendon, it was also the most chaotic clinical site location last
year, as well as the hottest, so I was dreading it. I was assigned there with
my partner Vanessa on Tuesday afternoon and I couldn’t have cut the
anticipation/anxiety with a chainsaw even if I wanted to. In a rather
non-humorous turn of events one of us had to be assigned to the injection room,
or as I refer to it, the “incident room”. Luckily, Vanessa stepped up to the plate
for me and took that position, while I was assigned to the pediatric ward
(yeah!). Well I waltz into the peds ward, really excited and breathing a sigh
of relief, and bam. It’s empty. The afternoon progressed at a snail’s pace with
the admission and discharge of a 7-day old baby with jaundice. She was super
cute, but I didn’t have any real interaction with her. Naturally, as I am
leaving, a 19-month-old boy suffering from a 22 minute-long convulsion spell
was admitted, but I didn’t have an opportunity to work with him. Needless to
say, the first day back was anticlimactic and hardly counts as facing my fear
of ampules.
3
BP Clinic (Wednesday): There is a senior group
called “La Legua” that meets regularly here in Piura. The entire nursing group
(all 14 of us) spent Wednesday morning providing blood pressure and glucose
screenings. One of the other missionaries staying here was a Physician
Assistant, so she was able to hold impromptu medical consultations for some of
the seniors. Also present was the reflexologist (yes, same man from last year
who diagnosed my tendon). When the
screenings were completed we danced the “chicken dance” and handed out gifts of
toothbrushes, toothpaste, and clean undershirts.
4 Family Picnic (Wednesday): For those of you that
don’t know, Sacramento Santissimo has a family-to-family program. This
opportunity entails a US family “adopting” a Piuran family in need. Every month
the family receives food stipends, clothes, and other necessities. Several
years ago, Marquette adopted one of these families: Eduardo, Erica, Christian,
Kiara, and Jessica. Erica brings the kids every night to mass, so that we can
interact with them, but the parish throws a picnic for those missionaries who
don’t have an opportunity to spend as much time with their families. Eduardo, Erica, and the three kids came for
lunch and games and then we had the opportunity to take them shopping in the
market! We were able to buy them food, a kitchen table and chairs, sandals, and
some clothes.
5
FIESTA! (Thursday): All of the missionaries were
invited to a community fiesta on Thursday night. After mass and dinner we
headed out into one of the squatter communities and partook in some traditional
Peruvian dancing and merriment. The people here are like energizer bunnies; they
go and go and go. Regardless of my exhaustion, the dancing continued until
around 11pm, when we returned to the compound for some sleep time.
