Weekly Recap

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.