Friday, June 24, 2011

Brittany's adventure continues!

I thought I was supposed to go from here to Santa Elena to start my placement tomorrow however we are staying the night in the host family’s house in Puerto Lopez and leaving for Santa Elena early in the morning. The food here has been good thus far, no seafood yet fingers crossed although I know I am going to have to choke some down sooner or later, ugh! The houses here are quite different, the roof is like sheet metal kind of and there’s a huge space between the roof and the wall (so reading between the lines there are a lot of bugs in the house!). I have a mosquito net over my bed that I sleep in but there are still these super tiny bugs everywhere I look! I am going to the hospital tomorrow to meet the doctor and staff and I am going to start Tuesday morning I guess. J I am very excited to start my placement!! There are 2 girls from the states that will be living with me in Santa Elena for the week then they are leaving Friday. I am glad because then I can get to know the buses to take or taxis etc. to the hospital. Today I talked a lot with the family, their 5 year old daughter Debora has not stopped following me around and I showed her pictures of my family and friends on facebook and she wants me to braid her hair in a bit haha! I went for a walk on the beach today with the host father, Miguel and there were so many fishermen and fish ewww! Coincidently on the beach I met 2 of the Canadians whom I went hiking with! All I heard was “Brittney”, in English and I was thinking who on earth could be calling me. I was very happy to see them and after supper I am going to meet up with them to hang out! It’s going to be an early night tonight for me, I am definitely overtired and very emotional today for some reason!

The hospital is soo different from Canada. The waiting rooms are outside and the treatment of patients is quite horrific. The first day we sat in on a few consultations then watched some surgeries. We did have to change our scrubs to watch but didn’t have to scrub in or anything. We watched a hernia surgery and a tubal ligation. The two girls from America (Stephanie and Margot) taught me some basic skills (they have completed their first year of podiatric medicine). This included an abdominal exam, breathing, pulse and manual blood pressure, which I still need to perfect. I had learned most of this from before (shadowing with Dr. Ferguson) but not the manual blood pressure. Today we watched surgeries all day. We got to see a ruptured Achilles tendon, which looked so different than I had pictured. We also saw pins put in a broken elbow and a woman who had a prolapsed uterus and who had a simultaneous hysterectomy (that was pretty intense!). I also watched an appendectomy (removal of the appendix). We also saw the very end of a C-section and I was disappointed we didn’t see the whole thing but I have a lot of time left and am determined to see a C-section and a natural birth. The surgeons let the 2 American girls scrub in one at a time for 2 of the surgeries today (I really wanted to but I let them since it’s their last day tomorrow). They got to hold the metal instruments to hold the skin open.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Brittany's time in Ecuador Continued!

Brittany relays to us the work she has been doing at a medical clinic in Santa Elena:

At work I usually go and see what surgeries are going on for the morning and stay and watch them. Then I eat lunch and go to Emergency for the afternoon. This week there was a hysterectomy and numerous hernia surgeries. There was also a surgery on a young boy and someone had their nose broken to fix it. That was surprisingly the grossest surgery because the cartilage snapped and blood and mucus were gushing everywhere. There was also a c-section which I almost missed. That was so amazing to watch and so quick! The baby was out before I even realized they had finished cutting the woman´s stomach! The baby was so small and precious and a girl :) I got to hold some tools for the hernia surgeries and I also got to clean 2 patients to prep them for the more sterile cleaning. In emergency I finally perfected my blood pressure taking skills, one of the interns told me you could also feel the pulse when it started because I was having a hard time hearing the systolic sometimes! ( That probably doesn´t make much sense sorry!). I have really become friends the interns there and they are so nice and willing to help me! I went to visit inpatients with one of the doctors this week, patients who are pregnant with infections, post-operation patients etc. Today was also pretty exciting I asked the nurses if I was allowed to give an injection, they said yes and I was pumped! A nurse had explained to me how to give one in the arm (although I have yet to try) but the ones today were in the butt. Luckily there were 2 this afternoon because I didn´t know how to give one there, so the nurse explained it t me and showed me then said next time I can do it myself. The second one she called me over and watched ( I made sure to double check I was putting it in the right place haha), so I got to clean the patient´s skin and give them a needle! I wasn´t even nervous at all which I was surprised at, I think I will be more nervous for the one in the arm. Tomorrow I have decided I am going to make sure there are no vaginal births (because that is top on my list of things to see) then I am staying in Emergency all day so I don´t miss a chance to give an injection in the arm! I also forgot to mention there was a patient with epilepsy who came in unable to breath and had a seizure.