Week Five

The scheduling has been really crazy the last couple of weeks, but I never blogged about how awesome week five was! Sorry things are a bit out of order, hopefully we'll be back on track soon!


Week five was a pretty fun week. Something about the energy in the clinic was more positive than usual. There were no patients there who appeared to be really sick (which is good!) and they all seemed very friendly. Because I do not speak Spanish, the majority of my communication with the patients is through body language, AKA I smile at them a lot. Sometimes I feel guilty for smiling because when they look back at me they just look so sad. But this week everyone smiled back. You can tell but their eyes that they really are appreciative of the help they are receiving.


The only really sad thing is that we have to turn children away on Fridays. There is a pediatrician who comes to the clinic on the weekends, but the adult doctors who come on Fridays do not see pediatric patients. There was one 15 year old boy who insisted that he could be treated as an adult. Although we could not help him on that day, it really showed me that so many of the kids in these situations have to grow up really quickly. They have to deal with very hard issues at very young ages, forcing them to grow up sooner than children who don't have to deal with such difficult issues. Once again, I felt very blessed to have grown up in the way that I did!

Week Six (Week Five will be posted next week)

This week was one probably the saddest week so far at Casa Juan Diego. The morning started out normally--hectic but still under control. As the people were checking in I was finding medical records and making we had everything we needed so that we would be prepared when the doctor showed up.


Before the doctors can see the patients, the volunteers who speak Spanish always interview them, taking their temperatures, blood pressure, and weight and asking them why they have come to the clinic. Usually the problems they are experiencing are not too extreme, but there was a very sick woman this week.


In the process of immigrating from Honduras, she was unable to eat for a long time, which really messed up her GI track. Since then she has been unable to eat at all, throwing everything up, and has become very sick. She should have seen a doctor earlier, but was too scared. The doctor at the clinic this week said that she really needed to go to the emergency room because she was doing so poorly. 


Once again, my experience really put my life into perspective. It is so sad that some people do not have access to healthcare--it is so hard for me to imagine. My experience here shows me the real service aspect of medicine. When I am a doctor I think I will have the skills and training to serve the community, especially those who most need medical attention.