Clinical Day 3

"Buenos Noches" from El Salvador!  We are definitely completely pooped today!  We saw over 160 patients.
Again we saw alot of "gripe" like symptoms.  The gripe is the flu in spanish.  After three days some of us have become pretty proficient with our Spanish.  It's amazing how much you can learn here; so much more when you are actually immersed in the culture. 
We are having a lot of problems keeping supplies.  We ran out of all our toys for the children, many medications, vitamins, and clothes.  Glasses are a hot commodity here.  There were numerous reading glasses donated.  These glasses were on display by the clothes and it was funny to see how everyone suddenly could not see.  Many pairs were pocketed before we able to control the situation. 

It was very sad to see how we were not able to help people as much as we would like.  We met a lady today with a blood pressure higher than 240/110.  All we could do is give her aspirin.  We found many lumps today, one in a breast and a grapefruit size mass on the bladder.

All the students are pretty amazed with our improvements in our assessments.  Our confidence has increased by leaps and bounds.  It makes a big difference caring for 160 patients in one day versus 1 or 2 patients per day in our normal clinical setting.  Everyone has a different comment on how they have improved identifying problems and abnormalities.  The graduate nurses have been very helpful (Sheila and Allison)!!  They seem to love to teach the nursing students and run the pharmacy.  They are more than willing to help if a consult is needed for a patient.
Alice and Tom are a non medical couple and are extremely helpful!!  Not only do they pass out toys and supplies to the patients but they take care of us as well.  They help prepare lunch for us when we get a break, ensure we are drinking water, and then they bought us an afternoon snack/drink at a beautiful restaurant north of the clinical site.

I don't remember the name of the restaurant, but it had an amazing view of the beach and water.  It was so nice to sit and relax and reflect on the day. We also got to see a lot of surfers.  According to one of our interpretators (who are awesome!) El Salvador is one of the best places to surf in the world.
We are getting ready to rest up because we are supposed to see even more patients tomorrow than today, hasta luego!
Maria

Pictures

Saturday

We were very grateful that all the people who live on and near the beach in Salvador were safe after the tsunami scare. Today we were able to go back to the clinic and see patients. The community called El Cocal was scheduled to come and we saw about 60 people.  The patients arrived with complaints ranging from a foreign object in a little girl's ear (green crayon), dehydration, asthma, gripe, to arthritis and asthma in the elderly. We are learning how to improvise and use what little supplies and medications we have to be able to help as much as we can.  Simple things that we take for granted such as vitamins are nearly impossible for these people to get. 

Tonight we are going to a restaurant called El Basilea in Zona Rosa.  It is a lovely space with outdoor seating,  gardens and waterfalls.  Tomorrow is shaping up to be another very busy day in the clinic with a whole new community.

Friday

Our day had been planned to visit hospitals with interpreters from the Evangelical University here.  However, at 7AM this mornig, we found out we had been scheduled to do a clinic in La Libertad.  We began our wild rush to get dressed and get to the clinic site.  Once we arrived at the site, we discovered our boxes of supplies were not there!!!  So, we took a few minutes and enjoyed the Pacific.  Once the boxes of supplies arrived, another wild rush to get them unpacked and a "pharmacy" set up.  Then, our awesome bus driver, that can parellel park a bus within centimeters of other cars (whew!), informed us a tsunami was heading our way!  Even though we were quite concerned, we opened the gates for our clinic to begin because we had a line of patients waiting for us.  Quite interesting our day -- no translators -- we relied on lots of body language and our Spanish dictionaries.  Our awesome bus driver, who stays with us all the time, kept us updated on the tsunami as we worked very diligently to see all the patients.  Our great friends we met here helped us get supplies packed up, and we made it off the beach before the tsunami was scheduled to hit.  We made it to Nora's home, who owns the beach property the clinics are held on, and visited for several hours. While there, we were able to watch TV to see all the devastation which happened today in Japan.  :-(  We visited the artisan market here in San Salvador for soveniers, then headed back to the hotel; we're now chillin, tired, and ready for bed.  Goodnight all...   Susan and Ash