Panama

Well ladies and gentlemen, this will be my last post for the Panama trip 2011 and I have just a few more things to share! First off, I'll talk about my clinical experience. My clinic was Hato Juli, which is place almost near the top of the mountain in the cumarca. It is a tiny place that usually sees about twenty to thirty patients a day. When I last spoke of my clinical experience, I told of how I was able to perform my first vaccinations and try to start an IV line on a child. In the days to follow, I was able to start perfecting my technique of vaccination giving and I was able to do a female STD check. The STD check was quite an experience to say the least. With my nurse, Lourdes, looking over my shoulder and building my confidence, I placed the speculum into the vagina and located the cervix. The cervix was pink, round and of normal size. Once I had identified the cervix and everything looked good, I continued on and obtained samples of cells to be sent to the lab to make sure everything is fine on the cellular level. However, my clinical days were not isolated to just the clinic, I was able to visit the elementary school that is directly across the street. My group made two seperate visits to the school in order to teach the kids about the importance of handwashing, eating fruits for their vitamins, and picking up trash around their community. The first day there, we did the teaching of handwashing and fruit to the Kindergarten class and they loved it! Lourdes was amazing with the kids by getting them to actually participate! We bought some stickers and each time a child answered a question correctly, they received a sticker...and a peice of candy as an added bonus. The activity they enjoyed the most was being able to throw fruit and my colleagues and I. In order to teach them about fruits and their vitamins, we bought some fruit and made labels to represent vitamins A-E that me and a few others wore around our necks. Lourdes had the brilliant idea to get the children to understand which fruit contains which vitamin, they should throw them at us! This theory proved to be correct as most every child threw the correct fruit at the correct vitamin. I considered that day a success. Next, we took groups of chrildren throughout the community and picked up trash to teach the kids about recycling. Im not too sure how successful that was because, when we finished and handed out candy, the kids threw the wrappers down on the ground! The clinic days are over and now on Tuesday I am going to be in the labor and delivery room at a hospital in David! The only down point on this trip was that I got a twenty-four hour virus on my twenty-first birthday! Other than that, thank you Dr. Cadena and thank you Panama for a great experience!